Catholic Theology Plain Pure Peaceable

Answ. Shall we preach thus to the people? Will this Doctrine convert souls to repentance or faith in Christ? 1. The question is not, Whether to will sin be sin in God? But Whether he will and cause the sin of man? which you sadly assert.

2. God's Glory is our End, and to forbear things prohibited is but the means: If sin conduce as much as Christ and Holiness to God's Glory, why may we not desire it sub ration medii, though not as praeceptum? We must desire that which is most conducible to God's Glory.

3. Though God be under no Law, his Perfection of Nature and Will is the fountain of all Laws, and instead of a Law to him. And we must be Holy because our God is Holy.

4. It is still false that sin is any Medium to God's Glory, or desirable, or hath any good.

5. God is Good and delighteth to do good. And he is the Just Ruler of the World: And I would not have Kings take such Justice for a pattern as you describe, as if God vehemently forbad sin, and sent his Son, and Spirit, and Ministers as an Army against it into the World, and will da •• men for it forever, and yet willeth and causeth it, as sum conducibils to his Ends, and saith [It is not evil to me, though it be to you. I will ••• meant you for doing it, though it was by my Will and predetermination.] And what Justice should Kings rather imitate than God's?

6. Sin is not malum Deo so as to Hurt him, or make him Guilty: But it is, so as to be a Violation of his Laws, and a contempt and dishonor to his Wisdom, Goodness, Greatness, Authority, Justice, Mercy, Truth, &c. If all the World joined in hating and blaspheming God that made them, though you say, that this is not malum Dei, but malum nostri, and therefore God may will it ut fiat as a desirable thing, we cannot be content with such confusion. Malum is either Physicum vel morale; and either in aliquo or contra aliquem. God is not capable 1. Of Physical Evil in himself, and therefore we cannot hurt him; 2. Nor of Moral Evil, and therefore he can have no sin or malignity. 3. But he is capable objectively of Injury; we can wrong him when we cannot hurt him. 4. And we are capable of being Reputative vel moraliter Hurters and destroyers of God, whom we cannot hurt: Because the sinner doth it quantum in se; and therefore is called an Enemy to God. It is no thanks to the wicked that there is a God, who would have none (as to his Holiness and Justice) if it were in his power.

Moreover, God is Good and doth good. And though he made Man freely, yet supposing that he will make him Man (a Rational free agent in his Image to Know and Love him)▪ it necessarily followeth that he must make him Holy. God cannot make a man in the Image of the Devil, and call it his own: As Parents generate Children in their own likeness, so God doth regenerate his own in his Image: He that thought it a good argument, [What Communion hath light with darkness, Christ with Belial, &c.] would sure have taken our part in this, that God cannot be the Author or Cause of the Image of the Devil, and of the works of darkness.

611. Therefore where he addeth, that God Willeth Malum esse that sin be, as the Matter of exercising his mercy and justice, not as his sin, but tantum vult fieri malum alterius, I deny it with horror as a reproach of God's holiness. The terminus à quo is not the Materia misericordia vel justitiae exercendae. God willeth the glory of his Mercy and Justice, in pardoning and punishing foreseen presupposed sin: But he willeth not the sin, but only our deliverance from it, or punishment for it. Suppose (per impossible) that the King had power to restrain all men from offending him, and yet saith, [I will do only what is Congruous to the Rational free nature of my subjects as such, and not all that I can do, and therefore will restrain them only by Laws, except some few beloved ones; but I will honor my Mercy and Justice on offenders.] Can you hence prove, that he willeth, decreeth or loveth ut appetibilia all the Treasons, Rebellions, Murders and Blasphemies that are committed? It is not these that he willeth ut Materiam, but deliverance from these as from the malum à quo. If your prodigal Son be addicted to Robbing, and you could lock him up, but you resolve that you will try him once more, and if he ro • you will let him suffer imprisonment and come to the Gallows, and then beg his Pardon, that suffering may hereafter be his warning; Here if you choose rightly it is not his Robbing that you will, no not ut sit vel fiat (for you had rather he would forbear:) But only his forsaking it, and his suffering to that end, on supposition that he rob again.

612. Pag. 105. He saith that [By the same reason as God might not will the being of sin, by his permission, he might not permit it.]

Answ. A raw unproved assertion: God might not make an Indifferent free-will, left to its own liberty, with a thousand warnings and helps against sin, unless he may also Desire them to sin. Prove this, else you say nothing.

613. He addeth that sin be or exist is not only Bonum per accidens, because God will make it the matter of glorifying his mercy and justice; but it is ex natura sua quoddam ordinabile ad Gloriam Dei, & consequenter Bonum est ex natura sua in genere conducibilis—

Answ. All unproved and false. 1. Sin is not so much as Bonum per accidens. 2. God doth not make it the Matter of glorifying himself, but only glorifyeth his Mercy and Justice against it as the terminus à quo, and not by it as the matter, though it may be called an Occasion sine qua non, as to this particular act and way of his said glorification. 3. Much less is it conducible hereto, which implieth a Medium that hath some natural or moral causality. 4. And least of all is it ex sua natura conducibile. It is not sin, but 1. Some effects or consequents of sin, 2. Our deliverance from sin, and the punishing of sin, which are conducible to God's glory.

614. Next he insulteth over Aquinas twice, as unhappy and vain in his censures, with a Magna est Veritas & praevalebit: laborare potest, vinci non potest: And argueth that because ex permissione infallibiliter sequitur peccatum, therefore to permit sin is the same as to will that sin shall be ipso permittente.

Answ. 1. It's pity that sin should have so good an Advocate, and God's Holiness so good an Adversary, through mistake. And that so unhappy a Cause should be managed so confidently and triumphantly, though it's well that it's done so weakly. 2. The falsehood of his assertion about permission as general I have opened before. 1. Three sorts of things may be said to be Not hindered (which is all that Permission signifieth.) 1. Things bent to a certain motion, 1. By Natural inclination (as a Stone in the Air to descend) 2. Or by Moral Vitiosity, as the Will of a wicked man. 2. Things merely indifferent; (1. Naturally, as some think the Air is to motion: 2. Morally: as suppose a Will such, to Good or Evil.) 3. Things averse to that Motion (as 1. Naturally a Stone to ascend, 2. Morally, as the will of an Angel or Saint to hate God, or the will of a wicked man to Love him.) Also you must distinguish between Not-hindering at all, and not hindering effectually.

And so it's clear, 1. That in the first case, the Motion will be if it be not hindered. But that it is not caused by not-hindering it, but by its proper moving causes. In the second case the consequence of futurity is false: And where the inclinations to good and evil (that is, to superior and inferior prohibited good) are equal; yea, though antecedently somewhat unequal: Yet bare permission ascertaineth not futurity. 3. Much less in the third case; where the soul must have positive help or provocation. Sure he did not think that all or any ungodly men would infallibly Love God, if God did but Permit them.

But God's Permitting or not hindering sin may respect divers acts. 1. I • God continue not his natural support, man will be no man, but be a •••• lated, and so will neither do good nor evil. 2. If God uphold man's n • ture, in its Integrity as it was in Adam, and give him not Moral means and helps of Grace, and his natural concourse, Adams sin would have necessarily followed. 3. If God give Adam both such support and means to stand, and do no more, God's permission would not have inferred the certainty of Adams sin, when he fell, anymore than before: For God withdrew no grace from him which was necessary to his standing. 4. I • God give a lapsed sinful man Nature and common grace, it followeth not necessarily because God doth no more, that he will commit every sin that he is not further hindered from: but it's certain that he will not do the works to which special grace is necessary. 5. If God give to the faithful the Holy Spirit, and continue his influx necessary to the continuation of the Power and Habits of holy actions, with necessary means, and do no more, this man will do some good and some evil, and though he may be equally said to be Permitted to do this sin as another, yet he may do one and not another. 6. God totally permitteth no man to sin, but hindereth them many ways, though he hinder not all alike. 7. It's possible for two men to have equal helps to duty and equal hindrances to sin (or the same man at several times,) and yet for one to do the duty and forbear the sin, and the other to commit the sin and omit the duty; As many Schoolmen have copiously proved. Yet in this case Permission would be the same thing to both.

But if you use the word [Permission] as connoting the Event, then indeed you may say that the event (from another cause) will follow. And God's non-impedition will ab eventu actionis be extrinsically denominated Permission in the one case and not in the other. But this is but from your arbitrary use of the word.

615. Next the Doctor assaulteth Durand who thus argueth, God's will followeth only his approving Knowledge. But he knoweth not sin approvingly; being of purer eyes, &c. He answereth,

To which I reply, 1. The first answer is unproved and false. God approveth not that sin be. If he did, few wicked men do more, as Esti • s saith: For it is not sin as sin or evil that they will, but that it be for other ends which seem good. 2. He phraseth it with his [ad qu • d necessario, &c.] as if God first willed this manifestation of his Justice, &c. as the end, and then sins existence as the means (yea, the necessary means): But this is false, as I have fully shown. 1. And his own opinion should confute it, that maketh one Decree only de mediis: And this particular Manifestation being some Acts of God, and not God himself, • or the Complacency of his Will, must needs be part of the media ad finem •• timum. 2. And indeed sins existence is not a necessary means willed for • ods glory: but it is a presupposed mischief, our Deliverance from which •• punishment for it, is willed for his glory: It is indeed necessary, but •• lie necessitate existentiae in esse praecognito as a foreseen evil, and so pre • pposed to those acts of God which are the Means of his glory.

Therefore his assertion of a Notitia approbationis rei tanquam Bonae in • nere Conducibilis, etsi non honesti, is detestable.

616. Ibid. p. 196. He again saith, that Though it be dishonest in the • eature to sin, because forbidden, it is not dishonest in God to will that he •• it by his permission, it being unice conducibile to his glory— • nsw. 1. Fie upon this conducibile and unice too. 2. Fie upon this oft • peated [permittente non efficiente;] It is utterly lusory or immodest: • or a man that maintaineth that no sinner doth anything in sinning, but • hat God as the first total cause predetermined his will to, even as to all • e entity in act and circumstances imaginable; and that in all omissions, • was a natural Impossibility to have done one omitted act without this • edetermining premotion: And for the man that in the next saith that • alum non est Objectum Volentis aut facientis, but ipsa effectio rei, I • y for this man yet to say, that the creature effecteth sin, and God effecteth • not, is too too gross. The common evasion is, that sin is not any •• ing, and therefore not effectible: But why then do they say, that the • eature effecteth it? when they have said and defended, that the crea • re doth nothing but what God doth, and what he unavoidably maketh •• m do.

617. Durand argueth, that Sin cannot be judged convenient by a •• ght understanding: Ergo, not by God. The Doctor answereth, That • es own sin cannot be judged convenient, but another's may. He in • anceth 1. When a man willeth that an Usurer lend him money on usury: • When a Christian Prince willeth a Turk to swear to a League by Ma •• met: 3. When God willed that Absalom should defile his Fathers Concu • nes. And he addeth, that for us to sin, is contrary to our right rea •• n, because it is forbidden and hurtful to us: But for God to will that • e sin, is not contrary to his right reason, as not forbidden or hurtful • him.

Repl. 1. No man should will unlawful usury: He that willeth to Bor •• w, though he cannot have it without usury, doth not will the usury, • ut the money non-obstante usura. As he that chooseth to travel with Blasphemer, rather than to go alone in danger, he doth not will his • lasphemy, but his company, non obstante blasphemia. 2. The same is to • e said of swearing by Mahomet: It is only the Oath as an Oath that is •• be willed, and not as by Mahomet; that is not willed but unwillingly •• dured. 3. Absalom's instance is answered before: God willed only • avids punishment, and the Passive Constupration as an effect of sin, • n a foresight of Absalom's active Volition and sin, and not as willing • is at all.

And we have hitherto thought that God's holy Wisdom and will is the Cause of his holy Law, and much more against sin than man's is: And that God willeth not, and causeth not the sin of man: And is it now come to • his, that sin is contrary indeed to our right reason, but not to God's, because • e is no subject: You may next say, that Holiness is meet for man, but not • or God.

618. Pag. 197. Again he is at it, Bonum esse ut sint mala: Quia bonum est ut Deus finem sibi praefixum assequatur: At hoc sine intervent • mali & peccati nullo modo potest.

Repl. 1. It is not per peccatum ut medium, though not sine peccat • . 2. Interventus therefore implieth a falsehood. For in esse cognito sin is antecedent or presupposed to the way of glorifying Justice and Mercy upon sinners; sinners are the object: And consequently you must take it (as before proved) for antecedent to the Volition or simultaneous.

619. He urgeth, Oportet heresies esse, ut qui probati sunt manifesti fiant.

Answ. That neither meaneth that men ought to be Heretics, nor yet that God loveth, willeth or approveth that there be heresies: But only 1. God decreeth to manifest the difference between the sound Christians and the rest: 2. And he foreseeth that there will be heresies. 3. Therefore he decreeth to try them by the occasion of those heresies which he foreseeth (and hateth.) The same is the case of all trial by persecutions: And God willeth not the sin of active per • ecution, but only the effect or passive part. So that the oportet (by your own confession of it) signifieth no more than a Logical necessitas consequentiae, which • oreknowledge without Volition will infer.

620. He addeth [Obj. It sufficeth that God permit sin, (and not will it) Resp. But either the existency of sin infallibly followeth the Permission of it, or not: If not, God's Intention may be frustrate: If yea, What matter is it, whether God will that sin shall be, he permitting, or s • permit it as that infallibly it will be? so we obtain either of these, it's all one to our cause of predestination.]

Repl. 1. If it be all one, take up with that agreement; and make •• further difference with them that grant you enough. 2. In case of ve •• meant Inclination to a sin, it would follow upon God's total permission: (but God never totally permitteth sin.) But in other cases, it will not follow: that is, It is not a good consequence, that This or that sin will be done, because God doth no more to hinder it, than that which sometime hindereth it not. And yet God's Intention is not frustrate: For •• will infallibly come to pass, from its proper cause, which God foreknoweth: And the consequence is good from his fore-knowledge. And is not that all one, as to the certainty of God's intentions? 3. You phrase it as if sin followed God's permission, as a deficient cause, or as that which cannot be otherwise, unless God do more to hinder it, and so we •• necessary thence necessitate consequentis (or as others call it necessitate •• tecedente) which is false, and oft denied by yourself. 4. The very truth is, Permission is a word of so great ambiguity and laxity, as relating to so many sorts of Impedition, that it is but delusory with •• much distinguishing, to say sin will or will not follow it. If you restra • it to a non efficaciter impedire, as is usual, it taketh not away the amb • guity much. For still the question is, What must make it effectual, unless you call any impedition effectual merely ab eventu, whatsoever it be •• itself.

621. He saith that the Universe would not be perfect, if there wer • perfect holiness and no sin, and so no pardon or punishment. But •• giveth us no proof, but confident assertion, at all. I need not say, th • It would be more perfect if there were no sin; It sufficeth me to say, tha • It would be as perfect: And so that it is not Necessary to the World perfection, that there be sin or Hell. God could have freely willed the contrary. And God's Goodness could have been as fully manifested if i • had so pleased him, and his Holiness too, without sin or Hell. It's unpleasing to me, that this good man pleadeth so hard against a necessity of Christ's satisfaction for sin, (in another digression) and yet pleadeth as hard for a necessity of sin; As if it were more necessary to God's Glory than Christ.

622. It is very observable in all this controversy, that he asserteth pag. 198. [That it's past all controversy, that neither God, nor the most sinful creature, do will anything, but as Good. And that no man can be instigated to malice (or evil) but only to the Act which is evil; because he that is instigated, is instigated to do something. But to the evil of an act, no efficiency is necessary, but deficience only.] How far this is true or false, I have opened before. I here only note, that he confesseth that he that causeth the Act of sin, (which he saith God doth more than man) causeth all that is causable.

623. Yet p. 199. he saith, Sin is of man only as the cause, when he professeth that man doth nothing but what God doth to cause it (yea, as the first total cause) and that as to Deficiency, man can do no more than he doth without predetermination, which if God withhold, man can no more help it, than make a World. So that all the mystery of his language is this; that because man is under a Law, and God is not, therefore man doing the same act as moved by God, must be called the only cause of sin, because it is no sin in God. But, if we spake as plain men ought to do, should it not rather be thus expressed by you [God is the chief cause of sin in man, but not in himself?]

624. Pag. 200, & 201. he hath the same over and over again, that Non abhorret à recta ration Dei velle peccatum fieri ab hominibus—Quod ex se habet quod conducibile est ad • onum tanquam Materia scilicet, non tantum idonea, sed & necessaria exercendae divinae justitiae & misericordiae: and that this manifestation conjunct with sin is Deo multo appetibilius, than that Good which sin depriveth us of (that is, Holiness:) Because this Holiness is only the Creatures Good, and the other is the Creators Good. Answ. But as the assertion is all false, so the reason is vain: For if he distinguish the Creator and Creature as subjects, he is quite mistaken: For both is the Creatures good, and neither the Creators: For to manifest Justice and Mercy is not God's Essence as in itself, but his Work of Punishment and Mercy. And the glory of this, is but the resplendent excellency of it as it is the appearance or Image of God. And all this is in the Creatures Holiness: The Holiness of Christ's Human Nature, and of Angels and Saints in Heaven is as much the Creators, as is his Works of Mercy and Justice; And God's glory shineth as much in them: And it is the glory of his Goodness, if not of Mercy which preventeth sin and misery: yea, and of Mercy too: For though mercy relate to misery, it is as well to possible misery prevented, as to existe •• misery removed: And if he speak not of Subjects, but Proprietors, the Bo • um Creaturae is also Creatoris.

SECT. XIX. The same doctrine in Rutherford de providentia confuted.

625. I Have been too long in confuting this Digression of Dr. Twisse which is contrary to the commonest doctrine of Protestants; and I think soundeth not well in Christians ears: The sum of which is this: [Neither God nor Devil do will sin as it is evil; but God is the first willer of its existence, because it is in its own nature sum & unice conducibile to the manifestation of his Justice and mercy: And willing and Loving being all one in God, he thus singularly Loveth the existence of sin, above its contrary (holiness) for this end: And by Predetermining premotion (which he much more largely writeth for elsewhere) he causeth as the first total Cause all that man Causeth; But it is sin in man because forbidden him, but not in God, because not forbidden him; And therefore God is not to be said to cause sin (though he cause all that is caused) but to permit it, because he causeth it not in himself; nor is he to be called a Deficient cause of our omissions, because he is not bound to Actuate us; but man is to be called the efficient and deficient cause, because he is under an obliging Law, Though God made that Law: And though he can no more than a stone act without physical predetermination, nor forbear acting when so acted, yet he is to be called free, because he is actually willing (or his will doth act) and because he is predetermined by none but God.] This is the true sense of their opinion as opened by themselves. I shall now briefly consider what Rutherford saith to the same sense.

626. Cap. 15. pag. 186. To Annatus charging Twisse as denying God's permission of sin, because he maketh him the Cause of the Act, the Liberty and the Prohibition, and to Cause is not to Permit; he hath no better answer than to say, that God doth not permit the Act, nor the Evil of the Act, but he permitteth the evil act: and 2. To say that the Dominicans and Jesuits hold the same as he. Which is to jest with holy things, and not to argue. As if he said, God made neither the soul nor the body, and yet he made the man. What! is it (as it's said, that non animased unio est vita) so Doth God permit the Union of Actum and Mal • m? No, that he pretendeth not.

627. To prove that God willeth the existence of sin, he bringeth the instance of Joseph 's case, Gen. 45. To which I say that the text saith not at all that God willed the Will or Act or Sin of Joseph 's brethren; but only the Venditio passiva or effect and the consequents; Nay only the consequents are mentioned in the Texts: His replies to the answers prove no more than the five things which I before asserted about sin. Nothing so much deceiveth them, as not distinguishing between the sinful act, and the effect or passion, when they are called by the same name (as Selling, Killing, &c.)

628. His next instance is of Christ's death, of which I said enough before: But 1. He understandeth his adversaries as ascribing only the Consequents of Crucifixion to God's will; which is his mistake: It is Crucifixion itself passive sumpta which they ascribe to it (some of them at least.) And let men too wise against God deride it as much as they will, God can will and Love that Christ be Crucified, and yet hate and not will the will and act of the Crucifiers, but only foresee it, as aforesaid. And let them jeer God as Idle or asleep, if he neither will nor effectually nill the sin; we will believe it to be his perfection and liberty, which they so deride. 2. And whereas he addeth that Active Verbs are used as Gen. 45. Misit me Deus, Isa. 53. Deus voluit eum conterere, Zech. 13. Ego percutiam Pastorem: and God delivered Christ to death: I answer, It is too too gross to persuade us hence that any of these Texts say that God willeth the sinners will or Act. [God sent me] speaketh God's act, that is, his disposal of the effects and consequents of them: But doth this signify, [God willed your malice or your act?] God did bruise Christ; which signifieth that he was a concause of his death: but not that he willed or Caused the Jews to will or act his death. And so of the rest.

629. The rest of his instances are such as I have answered before, or as the former answers fully invalidate; And therefore I will not weary myself and the Reader with them.

630. Cap. 18. p. 230. he asserteth, that [Sin is a Medium to God's Glory, and that not per accidens but per se. Because sin by how much the worse it is in genere mali inhonesti, by so much the better and fitter means it is, in genere boni utilis & conducibilis to God's glory, &c.] All which I have before confuted: and think not his defense of it worth repeating.

631. Many assertions he hath cap. 18. which all depend on the false supposition that Sin is a medium per se of God's glory, and the unproved supposition that God positively willeth the Permission of it (which is nothing:) whence he inferreth that God Intendeth it in this and that order, and much other vanity. And still they confound sin in esse reali which is no medium, with sin in esse objectivo which may be a part of holiness, and no sin at all.

632. Cap. 19. he argueth, God useth men and devils in the very act of sinning as his instruments, viz. to punish, to try, to humble, &c. ergo, he willeth the event that they sin.

Resp. Here is deceitful ambiguity in the words [instruments] and [useth.] Properly an Instrument is an efficient cause moved by the principal to an effect above its proper virtue. And so a sinner in and by the Act of sinning is no Instrument of God. For God moveth him not to that Act as specified or circumstantiated so as is prohibited; And being not at all so moved by him (as David to murder Urias, and to vitiate his Wife) he is not properly thus his Instrument. But sometimes the word Instrument signifieth a presupposed Agent, whose Action another can improve to his own ends: As the wind and water are improperly called the Millers Instruments of turning his Mill; and the spring and poise are the Clock-makers Instruments of moving his Clock or Watch; and a Mastiff Dog is my Instrument to keep away Thieves; and a Greyhound is my Instrument to kill a Hare, and a Ferret to catch a Rabbet, and a Hawk to catch a Partridge, &c. And yet we cause not at all the Nature or Motion of the Wind, or Water (but we can hinder the Water,) nor the nisus of the spring, nor the gravitation of the poise (but set the recipients so as that the effect shall be done as we would have it:) nor cause we the fierceness of the Mastiff, the inclination or motion of the greyhound, ferret, hawk, &c. but only tie them up and let them loose as our ends require. But zeal maketh some men deride that God should be said to be no more the cause of sinning; and they cannot allow him the skill of every dull Artificer, or at least a will to use it, without willing and causing the thing which he forbiddeth.

2. And the word [using] signifieth, sometime using by motion, as I do my pen; and sometime by ordination, and adjoining some concause, or fitting the receptivity of the patient to the effect as aforesaid; as we use; wind, water, dogs, hawks: Thus only sinners by sinning are God's used instruments: supposing his natural concourse and support.

And they are not his Instruments thus neither in the same sense as these creatures are ours: For their fierceness, craft, inclination, action, is good, and we do and may will it for our ends: But sin is not good; And therefore God willeth not it at all, but only the consequent of it, or effect: And that Effect is not Good, as it is the effect of sin, but as God setteth in, and causeth the same effect which a sinner causeth (as in generation per concubitum illicitum.) But when God willeth and causeth the effect, and foreseeth and permitteth the sinful Volition and act, which concurreth to that effect, such a sin is improperly called his used instrument or medium, but properly is none.

633. To Gibieuf and others saying that God acteth not by sin as an instrument, and willeth it not, but the effects; he answereth that It's absurd, because the sin itself is castigatory, and hath such like effects; and therefore God need not will that effect as after it. But all this is from the fore-noted confusion: It is not only the distant effect, but the very immediate effect, which is the Act itself ut recipitur in passo, which God sometime is said to Will. As he willed that Jobs Cattle were taken away, and that Christ were killed, and that Malchus ear be cut off, and that Paul be scourged, and smitten on the mouth, and that the Apostles were oft imprisoned, &c. And yet God only foreseeth but willeth not that will and act of the agent, which he forbiddeth.

634. And here note, that when the name of the Effect or Passion connoteth the sinfulness of the Act, then it is less meet to say that God willeth it: As to say that he willeth that we be persecuted, murdered, slandered, belied, &c. But if any will so speak, they must mean only the Passion, as distinct from the action: And then the difference is but in nudo loquendi.

635. To those that object that thus he maketh God the chief author of sin, the effect being more to be ascribed to the Principal Cause than to the instrument, he first ill-applieth some frivolous distinctions, and instanceth thus: [The hangman as the Judges instrument hangeth a man in malice or revenge: Ergo, the Judge much more, in revenge: Non sequitur.] Putting in Revenge which is but a Cause, as if it had been the Effect, which was in question.

And thus [The Sword that killeth a man is not culpable: ergo, nor the striker: Non sequitur.] As if the question had been of the Negation of an effect, and not of the position of it.

And thus [If two servants role a stone, one being commanded and one forbidden, one being father to the other; The Son (forbidden) roleth it unlawfully: ergo, the father (commanded) much more: non sequitur.] Resp. 1. As if the act of the Father and the Son were the same act, because the effect is the same, which is notoriously false: unless de specie. 2. Whose Instrument do you suppose the Son to be? If the Fathers, it is because the Father commanded him contrary to the Master; And if so, the argument is good: The Sons act was a fault who obeyed: ergo, the fathers more who commanded him: saving that commanding maketh another no necessary Instrument, because he can disobey: But God's premotion is supposed by you unavoidably to predetermine us.

636. But pag. 255. he giveth the true answer, that the consequence holdeth, not of a metaphorical improper Instrument, who hath somewhat of his own which he hath not from the principal agent, yea such have somewhat of Principal Causality, and somewhat mixed of their own which they have not of God, besides the nature of a pure instrument: such are sinners to God. Therefore it holds not, that the horse halteth: ergo, the rider halteth (no nor causeth it.) Thus insciously he unsaith what laboriously he writeth a Book to prove: and the very same that I say. The Rider doth not cause the halting as it is halting at all; but only as it is Motion in genere: so doth God by sinful acts: That they are exercised on the forbidden object rather than another, is not at all of God, but that they are Actions in genere is of God.

637. So p. 256. he well saith that the fault of the pen is not to be ascribed to the Writer, nor the effect as from that fault; nor of the Saw to the Sawyer; And so of the Sabaeans robbing Job: And he asserteth, p. 257. that Diabolus & Impii homines sunt causae principales in actu peccandi. And what need we more? Remember then that sin is an effect, and hath a Cause, and to make man a Principal Cause in actu peccandi is not to defy him: And he saith p. 256. that if God were the moral impeller as a principal agent, he were the principal cause of sin. But if you mean by moral impulse, only commanding it, let others judge whether Physical premotion be not much more than command: And whether I cause not my pen to write, though I command it not: And quoad terminum, to impel a man physically to moral acts, is moral impulse.

638. But the plausiblest argument is Cap. 20. p. 261. viz. God willeth sin as it is a Punishment of sin: ergo he willeth that the sin come to pass or be. And indeed Augustine saith much contr. Julian. to assert God's willing of sin as a Punishment of sin. But I answer this, 1. Even these men themselves oft say that God willeth not the formal peccati, but the material: And forma dat nomen: ergo he willeth not sin as a punishment, in proper sense.

2. Sin itself (though denied by many Arminians) is verily a Punishment, and more to the Sinner himself than to any other. And it is the most difficult part of the question, how God maketh sin a Punishment to the sinner himself; which yet I have plainly opened before, and here repeat it. To be sin or disobedience and to be Punishment are no absolute entities, but are two Relations of one and the same Act; but not as referred to one and the same correlate. God is not at all the Cause of the Act which is sinful, in its forbidden mode and circumstances (as Claudicatio equi before said) but only in genere actus, or hujus actus when two sins are compared: But that the Act when done is sin and is punishment, God is the Cause of both: That is, he maketh man's nature first, and in that and by revelation, his Law: by which he first maketh man's duty, and telleth him what shall be sin if he do it: And next he doth by his threatening tell him, that this sin itself shall be the sinners own misery if he do it: As if (as aforesaid) God first made man of such a nature as that poison would torment him ex natura rei: And then commandeth him to avoid it; And then threateneth that it shall torment and kill him if he eat it. Here now God maketh the Man and the Law: God maketh not the Act of sin as modified or oblique, or as that circumstantiated act. But when the act is caused by Man, God by his Law causeth two Relations to result, first that of sin, and then that of punishment. So that man first causeth the sinful act, and then that it is quid prohibitum, and quid poenale result from God's Will and Law made before.

Now if God cause not that sin which is a punishment to ourselves, he causeth not that which is a punishment to others; And yet supposing it, he maketh it a punishment to us and them, on several accounts.

639. But though God cause not the sin, yet when he hath before in his Law threatened to withhold his grace and spirit if we sin, without which grace and spirit we will sin, If God now for former sin do deny us, or withhold that grace or help which we need to keep us out of it, he is morally and improperly said to cause that sin as a punishment, because that penally he refuseth or forbeareth to save us from it, and so permitteth it (as is said.)

640. The Arminians grossly err, if he cite them justly, Remonst. in Script. Synod. art. 1. p. 202. saying that God may predetermine and pre-ordain the obstinate and rebellious to sin by his penal judgment, and yet those sins are not be reckoned to them for sins, nor increase their guilt: unless the word [sin] be used equivocally: For to have sin and no sin, are contraries. Whether God determine Idiots and Madmen to those acts which would be sin in others, as he doth Bruits, I leave to others.

641. I am weary of pursuing this ungrateful dispute. As to his controversy against Cameron cap. 22. Whether God will Justice and holiness because it is good, or whether it be good because God willeth it? It troubleth me to read bitter and tedious disputes about that which one easy distinction putteth past all controversy. Of things ad extra God's will is first the efficient, and then the ultimate end, as is oft said: God's will as efficient giveth first the Being and then the Order to all things: or else they could never be what they are. All created Justice and Holiness is such, that is, Good (for Goodness is their essence) because God's efficient will made them so: And then God's final will taketh complacency in them or Loveth them because they are so. But if they talk of Goodness or Justice, &c. as it is in God, there is in him no effect and so no cause of himself or anything in himself.

642. But some things God maketh moral duties by the very work of Creation, and Ordination of the World, without any other Law: And these are called Duties by the Law of Nature, because the very Natura rerum is a Law, that is, a signification of God's will constituting man's duty. It is man's essence to be an Intellectual-free-agent; It is impossible that such an agent Created of God should not be God's Creature, and God's own, and dispositively a Moral governable agent, and that he should not owe God all that he is and hath and can do, and that God should not have the Jus Dominii & Imperii over him, and Jus ad summum ejus Amorem It is a contradiction to be a Created Man, and not God's Own, and his obliged Subject and Beneficiary. Therefore it is a contradiction that submission, obedience and Love should not be his Moral duty and good, and that self-alienation, rebellion, or disobedience and hatred should be no sins.

643. To dispute then (as he doth with Cameron and his followers) Whether it be good ex natura rei, or by God's mere free-will? is a strange dispute, and of most easy resolution. Either they speak of God's creating will, or of some other subsequent Volition. Man is made man by God's free creating will: And the foresaid Relations, and duties are made such by making him Man. And the duties of Love and Justice to others are made such by his Creators placing him in a world where his Neighbors are about him, who are due objects; as a part of the society, like a Wheel in a Clock: The Creators will is before Nature, and therefore before natural duty, as the Cause before the effect. God could have made beasts instead of men, who had owed him no more than beasts can do. But from the Nature of a Man coexistent with God, his said duties to God so necessarily result, that it could not be otherwise; nor did there need any subsequent act of God's will to make that duty.

644. But those that are not Duties by Nature, must have moreover a further act of God's will as signified to make them so; As the Mosaical Ceremonies, our Sacraments, &c.

645. And many Natural Laws and duties are mutable, towards one another, because the very Nature and Natural Location or Order of the Things from which they did result, are mutable; And a word of God can make a change: when yet before such antecedent mutation, the duty must be duty still.

646. As to Mr. Rutherfords oft saying that Omnis actus entitativus simplex est moraliter de se indifferens, neque bonus neque malus; And then that per actum simplicem he meaneth such as include not the object, It is ludicrous or vain talk. There is no such Act as hath not an object, anymore than physical form without matter. Quicunque movet, aliquid movet; Quicunque intelligit, aut vult, aliquid intelligit aut vult, (vel seipsum vel aliud.) An Act without its object is but a partial or inadequate Generical conceptus of that Act which hath an object; or an abstract partial notion of an act. Why then doth he talk of that which is not? Had he said that every act is in the first instant rationis, or abstract-partial conception, an Act in genere, before it be intelligible as this or that act, about this or that object, he had spoken intelligibly as other men do.

647. Such another question many called Arminians much use, Whether Justice &c. be eternally good? Or An dentur rations boni & mali aeternae & indispensabiles? which needs no other solution than this last. There is no such thing as an Universal, existent per se and not in some Individual: And so no such thing as Love, Justice, &c. Bonum, Malum, which is not alicujus Justitia, Bonum, &c. There was no Creature from Eternity being Just or unjust, good or bad. But God's perfect Nature might be called Eternally Just, in that he must necessarily be Just, if he had been a governor: And necessarily was Just, when he freely became a governor. And also this proposition was Eternally true, (if there were eternally propositions) [Si Homines existerent, Justitia in ipsis debita foret: & quandocunque Homines fuerint, Justitia in ipsis debita fuerit.] But when all the sense of these questions is no more, but what Duties are natural, and what superadded (called Positive,) and what natural duties are immutable and what mutable, it's an unhappiness that the world must be troubled with such uncouth forms of speech as make the question unintelligible, till unravelled.

648. As to Rutherfords charge of Cameron and his followers in France, Amyraut, &c. with Semipelagianism and Arminianism and filthy opinions, it is but the effect of the good man's overweening, and conceitedness of his own apprehensions, which must be allowed or endured in most of these contenders; And the fruits of such disputes is like to be little better. But the worthy praises of Blondel, Dallaeus, Placeus, Cappel, Amyraut, Testardus, &c. shall survive such reproach. And a thousand pities it is, to read a good man Voluminously proving God to be a Willer of sins existence, and a prime-predetermining Cause of all prohibited Volitions and acts, and reproaching the Jesuits, Lutherans, Arminians and Socinians as the great enemies of God's Providence for denying this; As if he would tempt the World to think that Socinians were in the right, and that Jesuits, Lutherans and Arminians were the only defenders of the Holiness of God, whilst Calvinists made him the Lover of all the sin in the World, as the most appetible conducible Medium to his Glory.

649. But (to proceed) his next Argument is, cap. 23. Sin conferreth something to the splendor, ornament, and plenitude of the Universe: E • go, God willeth its existence: This is answered before. The antecedent is utterly unproved. Sin addeth nothing to the ornament or perfection of the World. His word is no proof.

650. Afterwards he heapeth up many frivolous arguments against that which he calleth reproachingly, The Idle Permission of sin; and saith, that it frustrateth the prayers of the Saints, and their patience, their gratitude, trust, hope, fear, joy, alloweth the arrogance of the persecutors, fighteth with God's Wisdom, Clemency, Justice, Providence, with the Ministry of the Word, the Promises, Threatenings, with Ministers confirming ••• against sufferings, and it is blasphemously injurious to God, and contrary to the order of things in the world, that he should permit sin, and not will the being of it.

Resp. What is it that a man, yea, a pious man in a blind zeal of God and self-conceit, may not pour out confident words for? What a case is the poor Church in, when the unlearned people must be on both sides charged by their Teachers with blasphemy, what way ever they go? This man will tell them that they are blasphemous, and overthrow all reason and Religion, if they say that God only Permitteth sin, and doth not himself will the being of it, and move unavoidably all wills, and tongues, and hands, to all the blasphemies, persecutions, and murders that are done, and damn men for it when he hath done. And others will as confide •• lie say that he is a Blasphemer, for charging God to be much more the cause of all forbidden acts of wickedness than Devils and men are, and the • damning them for it, and for putting God into the shape of the Devil, and painting him odious to human nature, that man may not love him: What shall poor people think when they are thus torn and tormented by their holy Guides? But all his arguments are before answered, when I shown him how many ways God hath to secure the Effects and Events in the world, and attain all his Ends, and yet only Permit, and neither Will, nor Love, nor Cause the sin.

651. Cap. 26. he cometh to plead for Predetermination, and saith p. 385. God predetermineth us (to the Act of hating God) in linea me •• physica, & non morali. Meer delusory words. He maketh it by the Law of Nature a sin to hate him, and then he maketh men hate him •• linea physica & non morali! as if the moral sinfulness resulted not from the Law and act; that is, here from Nature itself, viz. of the Man and act, both which God made.

652. Pag. 386. he saith, that [Directa & expressa & efficax Dei V • litio, qua Vult ut sit seu fiat actus Dei odii, non facit Deum Malitia q •• per accidens sequitur actum, authorem.] Resp. But that per accidens is no reason of the denial, if God cause that accident also, as the first cause. If he make a Law, and make the forbidden act, the relation of sinfulness is an Accident indeed, but ariseth from the said fundamentum so necessarily that it cannot be otherwise. But it should have made a holy Divine to tremble to have said, that God directly, expressly and effectually willeth men's Act of hating God, viz. that it exist or be.

653. And it is false that he saith, that God is equally the Cause that men hate him, if he will the Act hypothetically, ineffectually and determi • ably by another's will, as if he willed it efficaciously. And so when he maketh the Doctrine of Universal Concurse and Causation, as guilty as • is predetermining pre-motion. As if God could not make man a free- • iller and agent, and as the spring of Nature, enable him and concur • o his Act as an Act, in genere, without causing it to terminate on the forbidden object in specie. As if it were impossible for the Sun to be • n universal cause of the stinking of a Dunghill and Weed, without being • he special: or as if God must be made the cause of every blasphemy, unless • e will make the blasphemer speechless, and of every villainy, unless he will strike men dead to prevent it. This is not reverent and holy judging of the most holy God the Judge of all.

654. The sum of all his Vindication of God from being the chief Author of all sin (pag. 387. & passim) is but this one reason, God is under no Law. But if this be all, why do you not speak out what you mean, but hold that which you dare not name, viz. [That God is the chief • nsuperable cause of all the sin of Devils and men for which he damneth • hem, and that both as to the matter and form; but yet thus to do is no sin in God himself, because he is under no Law.] This is your most • lain undoubted sense, or else your Book is non-sense; What need we then any further enquiry what you hold? It is delusion to pretend that you are accused for making God a sinner. We charge no such thing on you: But only for making him the chief insuperable cause of all the sins of men and Devils.

655. Pag. 400. he plainly professeth that the Will as a physical agent is the cause of the act as physical, and as under a Law, and that act is against the Law, so he is the cause of the Malitia actûs, and culpablo. So that God causing by his own confession both Act and Law, there is no modest subtersuge left for his not openly professing that he asserteth God to be the cause of all sin, the principal cause, both as to matter and form.

656. The rest of that Disputation striketh me with such horror in the reading, that I confess I have not the patience to proceed any further • n it, nor shall further thus exercise my Readers patience. The case is plain. Either Hobbes, or Free-will permitted, must carry the cause in the case of sin: There is no middle way. He that will read Ruiz and Rutherfords answer impartially, needeth no more of mine for the confutation of his vain responses.

657. But cap. 29. p. 484. he falleth also on our most Learned and Judicious Dr. Field, because in his lib. 3. c. 3. of the Church he contradicteth his opinion; and it must move just indignation in the Reader that he addeth [idque probare conatur contra reformatas Ecclesias.] Unworthy injury to the Reformed Churches, more than to the worthy Dr. Field! How falsely are they interested in your unhappy cause! See the Synod of Dort, where there is not a word for it. Is one Twisse with his Rutherford, or Maccovius, or a few such, the Reformed Churches? Let the Reader peruse the Articles of the Churches of England, Scotland, France, and all the rest, and see where he can find your Doctrine of Predetermination unto sin. Even Jansen himself is against it among the Papists, when his Dominican Predecessors are the Fathers of it. Nothing more common with English Divines than (as you did before yourself) to explicate God's causing the acts of sinners, by the similitude of the Riders spurring a halting Horse, or the Suns making a Dunghill stink; which only speak the cause which we call universal, and is the very thing which we assert. And it is most unsavourily done, to get into the Chair and magisterially say [Fieldus vir alioqui doctus, in his controversies minime se versat •• esse prodit—& Zumelem non satis intelligit, quippe non satis g •• rus controversiarum Arminianarum, & scripsit dum aulam Armini •• plus aequo faventem haberent. ] But how easy is it for a man to overvalue himself, and contemn another? I highly value the piety in Mr. •• therfords Letters. I am no fit arbiter ingeniorum: But when I hear other men say that one Field was more Judicious than many Rutherfords, I c •• fess by reading their several writings I find no temptation to deny it; And why should Field and consequently Davenant, Usher, Carlton, M • ton, Hall, the Synod of Dort, and I think the far greatest part of Protestants (I verily think fifty if not an hundred for one) who are against you, be made odious by the supposition of being not far enough from Arminians, rather than Maceovius, Twisse and Rutherford take it for a disgrace, to hold the same opinions against God's Holiness, which the D •• nican Friars hold, who have been the bloody Masters of the Inquisition, and murdered so many thousand Protestants or Waldenses and Alligenses?

And that which he saith of Fields writing when the Court favored Arminianism, is notoriously false, and such insinuations unworthy of so good a man as the speaker. Fields Works were printed singly before they were printed together in Folio. And his fifth Book was printed A • no 1610. and the words cited are in the third printed before. And the Synod of Dort was called An. 1618. and sat 1619. also; And King James was a zealous suppressor of Arminianism, and sent five or six Divines thither to that end. And long after in King Charles his days, Pet. Heylin in the life of Archbishop Laud will tell you, that the Armini •• Bishops then were but five, Neal, Laud, Buckeridge, Corbet and Hows •• , to whom Learned Montague was after added: So that they durst not trust their Cause with a Convocation. Field then shall be a most Judicion worthy Divine, when partiality hath said its worst.

658. And what is his error? Why he saith that it's a contradiction to say that God causeth the Act (in all its state,) which is the Material • peccati, and causeth not the formal, which is inseparable. A foul error indeed, to tell you that he that causeth the subjectum, fundament •• , rationem fundandi & terminum causeth the relation; and that he that maketh an European white and an African black causeth the dissimilit • de, and so doth he that maketh the straight Rule and the crooked line, th • forbidding Law, and the forbidden act.

659. Were it not that the necessity requireth such work, because such Books are in men's hands, I should think I had injured the Reader, by th •• much: For my work is not to confute Books, but to assert sure reconciling truths. Otherwise the confutation of the rest of that Book (for God's willing and causing all forbidden acts in their full state, and the existence of sin) is most easily answered.

SECT. XX. The old Reconciling Doctrine of Augustine, Prosper and Fulgentius. And first Prosper ad Gallorum Qu.

660. IT is a strange thing to me that when Pelagius, Julian, Faustus, &c. thought Augustine a Novelist, and (as Usher asserteth) would have fastened the title of Predestination-Heretics on his followers, and almost all confess, that Augustine was, if not the first, yet the most notable public Vindicator of absolute Predestination and Grace, yet the Judgment of Austin, with his Disciples Prosper and Fulgentius, doth not serve turn to quiet, if not to end these controversies, among those who profess to be their followers! when as they have so copiously and plainly written upon the case!

661. I entreat the Reader that is inclining to any extremes, but to read • over first those short answers of Prosper ad Capitul • Gallorum and ad Objectiones Vincent. And most of the Sententiae de Capit. I shall think it worthy my labor to recite, to force them on the Readers observation, and let him see the highest old Doctrine of God's Decrees.

SECT. XXI. Prosper 's answers ad Object. Vincent.

662. I Will crave the Readers patience while I add the sum of hi • Answers also to some of the Objections of Vincentius.

SECT. XXII. The words of Fulgentius to the same sense.

663. I Must crave of the Reader that he remember that my reciting the Judgment of these Fathers for the falling away and perishing of many that were in a state of Life, is not at all as declaring my own judgment, but Theirs; none then that I read of thinking otherwise. . I shall (for the End sake) be yet a little more • edious in citing some of the sayings of Fulgentius.

664. I am loath to weary the Reader with more. Should I do the like by Augustine's words it would be too wearisome. His judgment is the very same as theirs. I will only cite one passage out of him, about man's Power to believe.

Tract. 53. in Johan. having shown that God only foreknoweth men's sin, and foretelleth it (as the Jews) but causeth it not, he cometh to answer John 12. 39. They could not believe &c. If they could not how was it their sin?—saying,

665. By all this the Reader may see past all doubt, that Augustine and his two disciples, (than whom none known to us in the whole world then went higher for Predestination and Grace) did plainly take up with this, that 1. GOD NEITHER CAUSED OR WILLED SIN, no, not ITS BEING, or the forbidden ACT.

2. That OUR SIN was of OUR SELVES.

3. That ALL GRACE and perserverance was OF GOD.

4. That ELECTION was ABSOLUTE of GOD's mere will, and not upon his foreknowledge of any merits of man's.

5. That God predestinated none to sin, but predestinated men to Punishment, ONLY ON THE FORESIGHT of their willful sin.

6. That he hardened men but by deserting them.

7. That he never forsook them till they forsook him first, and deserved it by sin.

In a word, that man's destruction is of himself, but his help of God; who resolvedly chooseth some to salvation, and helpeth them accordingly with that effectual grace, and especial perseverance, which he justly giveth not to others, though if he would he could.

SECT. XXIII. Healing Principles and Concessions of the Synod of Dort, &c.

666. I Know not how to conclude this discourse more suitably to my ends, than by opening to the Reader who is sensible of the Churches sin, misery and danger by our contentions and divisions, how much the parties whom I endeavor to reconcile, are agreed in judgment about these matters, and that in their own words. Remember still that it is not some few that run further than the rest (either Episcopius, Curcell ••• , &c. on one side, or Maccovius, Rutherford or Dr. Twisse, or Alvarez and other Predeterminants on the other side,) whose particular opinions I cannot undertake to reconcile: But only the generality of the Calvinists who go no further than the Synod of Dort (which is my test of the party) and the moderate Arminians, Lutherans, and Jesuits (in these points) on the other side. And let none reproach me for putting in the Jesuits, for as I know that very few Calvinists fly near so high for Predetermination as the Dominicans do; so I know that (though Arminius himself was a sober man, and Episcopius is cried up by some, as Volkelius and other Socinians are by others, as most clearly rational, yet) there is none of them all that equal in accurateness of search and clearness of reason, either many of the ancient Schoolmen, or Suarez, Ruiz, Vasquez, Albertinus, and many other latter School Jesuits.

667. The first thing that I will desire of the Reader is to peruse those many healing concessions contained in the writings, especially Irenicons, of many Learned Calvinists already extant: Especially Davenants two dissertations, Dr. Sam. Wards works; the Judgments of Davenant, Morton, Hall, to Dury about this: Bishop Robert Abbots, and Bishop Carltons works oft on the by: Bishop Usher of Redemption, &c. Mr. Fenn • r of willful Impenitency, and Hidden Manna, Joh. Bergius for Reconcil. I • dov. Crocii Syntag. Conrad. Bergii Praxis Can. Junii Irenicon and of predeterm. Paraei Irenicon. Amyrald. Defens. doct. Calv. & Irenicon. Testard. de nat. & Grat. Hotton. de toler. Theses Salmur. but above all Le Blanks Theses, Vossii Thess. & Histor. Pelag. Musculi Loc. Commun. And the geral Irenicons, as all Durie 's, Hall 's Peacemaker and Pax terris, Burroughs Iren. Acontii stratagem. Satana (an excellent book) &c.

668. Next I will insert some words to this end, in the Synod of Dort.

I. About the first Article (of Predestination) they open free election, but mention no other Reprobation but God's not-electing, or passing by, some whom he found in sin, and in the misery in quam se suâ culpâ praecipitarunt, &c. and not giving them effectual grace of Conversion, but leaving them in their sin. And can any doubt of this? or do any Jesuits or Arminians deny it?

Where also they declare that God is no cause of men's sin, but themselves; And that the Children of the faithful are by Covenant so holy, that their salvation who die in infancy is not to be doubted of: And that those that find not saving grace in themselves, but yet use the means, have no cause to be cast down at the mention of Reprobation.

669. II. About Christ's death they say, that His satisfaction is of infinite value and price, abundantly sufficient to expiate the sins of all the world; And that the promise is that whoever believeth shall not perish, which is to be preached to all: And that many yet repent not, believe not, but perish, is not through any defect or insufficiency of Christ's sacrifice, but by their own fault. And that others believe is of undeserved grace.

670. III. In the third and fourth Art. sect. 8, 9. they say that the fault is not in Christ or the Gospel, that many that are called are not converted and come not, nor in God that calleth them and giveth them many gifts, but in the called themselves that receive not the word of life, &c. And that you may see that they hold a conditional will or decree not only of future but of non-future contingents, they say that

671. And the confession of Pet. Molinaeus received by the Synod, is worthy observation pag. 290, 291. where he saith

And next of Christ's death he saith that

672. And pag. 295. he saith

673. The British Divines in their Suffrage say that

And they say that

674. The Hassian Divines ibid. Par. 2. pag. 34. say

675. The Helvetian Divines there say, p. 37. §. 12.

676. The Embdan Divines ibid. p. 75. say

677. On the second Art. the British Divines say (p. 78.)

678. On the second Article p. 103, 104, &c. there is the suffrage of the famous Matthias Martinius, in 26 Theses of universal Redemption, and seven Theses of special Redemption, and seventeen Errors rejected, so sound, so full, so accurate, that I know not whither to refer the Reader to see the whole controversy more shortly yet clearly and soundly opened: And therefore entreat him to peruse it, seeing I may not be so tedious as to transcribe it all; and know not how to leave out any.

679. To the same sense have Iselburge and Lud. Crocius adjoined the • suffrages, the last being both brief and full.

680. The same Breme Divines say no more of Reprobation but these three Thes. 1. That there is a Decree of preterition as to special saving grace. 2. That none are condemned but justly, for their sins. 3. That others as unworthy are converted in Mercy: And if others had said no more of this, it had been never the worse.

And of Infants they say [Of only Believers Infants, who die before they are capable of doctrine, we determine that they are beloved of God, and saved, as holy by Covenant-relation: which Baptism is a Confirmation of—]

SECT. XXIV. On the other side.

681. ON the other side read but Suarez and Ruiz to save me transcribing, and see what they grant (besides that Ariminens. and many old Schoolmen go as far as the Synodists, as the Dominicans do much further.) Petr. à S. Joseph. Suav. Concord. writing for Scientia Media, summeth up the difference between them and the Thomists (that is, the Arminians and Calvinists) so briefly as is worth the reading: In which he granteth,

And is not here a fair concession for peace? And must not the remain • ing differences be only 1. About words, 2. Or unsearchable Orders of God's Decrees and Modes of operation? Read him further, and see.

682. Dion. Petavius the Jesuit is too large to transcribe. Vol. 1. Theol. Dogm. lib. 9. of Predestination is worth the reading; especially to know what the Fathers held of God's Decrees, who generally agreed, that God decreed none to Hell, but upon foresight of their own sin. Though he himself doth furiously rail at Calvin, and Amyraut, yet he so far acquitteth all other Calvinists save Beza and Piscator, and a few that he calleth mere fools, that he saith, They have all forsaken his opinion, and instanceth in the whole Synod of Dort, who he saith desert him. And he professeth that Augustine's judgment may safely be held, which is it indeed, that those now called Calvinists own, except in the point of perseverance. See his lib. 10. c. 1. & 9, 10, 11.

But what a plague, livor and faction is to the Church and the owners souls, let but these ugly words of his be witness, lib. 10. cap. 14. p. 728. [Calvinus nocentem nullum, innocents omnes damnari statuit] When • e had made Amyrald an impudent liar, for proving Calvin to think otherwise. O take heed of the spirit of a Sect.

683. Suarez de Auxil. l. 3. cap. 6. about sufficient and effectual grace, (into which all the other controversies fall,) confesseth that [Sufficient grace is that quod satis est ad efficiendum supernaturalem actum, quod tamen non facit, non ex insufficientia auxilii, sed ex libertate Voluntatis: But effectual grace is called such not only ab eventu & effectu, sed etiam quia vires praebet efficacissimas Voluntati, & singularem vim habet ad agendum.] And is here no ground for Christian Concord in this point?

But of this subject, I must speak more particularly in the Third Part.

684. Bellarmine himself hath enough I think to convince any man, that he must have a subtle contentious wit, that can find any great intolerable difference herein between him and the Synod of Dort: (I Write not for them that will revile God's truth, if Bellarmine do but own it.) De Grat. & lib. arb. li. 2. cap. 9. this is his proposition

685. And I desire the Reader to note his Order of the Decrees (for they must all be meddling with the Order of God's inward acts▪ But he doth i • most briefly and plainly thus) ib. cap. 9.

Is not this as high as the Synod of Dort goeth? yea, more rigid than many of the Suffrages? For he mentioneth no giving of Christ, or any remedy at all to any but the Elect, nor carrying the rest any further tha • the common mass of perdition, before they be forsaken; contrary to what Martinius, Crocius, Molinaeus, the British Divines, and others delivered to or in that Synod: And indeed it is unsound.

686. If you say, that he begins with a Scientia Conditionalis. I answer, It's no more than what all sober men will grant de re, that is, that God knew from eternity that if he so made man as he did, he would fall: or, if there were eternal propositions, God eternally knew the truth of this hypothetical proposition, [If I so make man, he will fall.] If this was quid intelligible, no doubt but God knew it. But de ordine & de nomine, whether it be fit to parcel out God's knowledge (and Volitions) into such shreds and atoms, and so denominate them, let them look to it on both sides that trouble us with their divisions.

687. And note Bellarmine's further explication

688. Yea, cap. 15. whereas many distinguish predestination to faith or grace, from election to glory, and say that the latter is upon the foresight of faith as a condition, though the first be absolute, he opposeth them and copiously laboreth to prove

689. And c. 15. ad obj. 2. he proveth God's certain foreknowledge • erein, because

689. And to them that say, the Elect can refuse grace, he answereth • hat

690. And indeed before de Gratia efficaci li. 1. cap. 12. he tells us, that • here are three opinions wherein the efficacy of grace consisteth: The first is, that it is called effectual only from the event, through man's con • ent: which he disproveth. The second, that it is only efficacious by necessitating physical predetermination, which he thinks to be an error on • he other extreme: And the third which he defendeth is [that it is efficacious by God's will that it shall be so, and by the Congruity or moral • ptitude of inward and outward persuasions and means which God useth with a decree to turn the will.] And who can say that God cannot do this? or if he can, that he doth not? Is here yet any room left for quar • elling and bitter censures in this point?

691. Lib. 2. cap. 16. he maketh two acts of Reprobation the very same that almost all the suffrages in the Synod of Dort assign, and the same doctrine that Davenant, and the Synod deliver. His first act of Reprobation is Negative, the second Positive;

692. He proveth as the Calvinists do,

693. Francisc. à Sancta Clara, alias Davenport, a Learned Scotist in his Deus, Nat. Grat. Probl. 1. pag. 3. describing Predestination out of Augustine, Arriba, Scotus, Suarez, &c. saith

694. And Probl. 2. of the Causes of Predestination he noteth that

695. But he addeth

696. Pag. 7. he himself professeth, that when the Protestants say that

697. Yea (ordering God's Decrees after the usual presumption) be asserteth,

698. Probl. 3. he resolveth with Smisings, that the reason why this absolute decree of God consisteth with free-will, is because that God doth not only decree the event, but also the mode, that it shall be freely done: And therefore his decree doth not only consist with Liberty, but maketh it necessary.

699. His feigned order of the decrees is pag. 27. that

And of Reprobation;

700. Supposing you to remember the ordo signorum of his Master Scotus before cited, I adjoin the order Doctoris illuminati (viz. Fra • . Mayronis) in li. 1. d. 41. q. 4. Sunt quatuor signa:

Here you see a Reprobation that is no Act of God, but a non-acting, or is negative quoad actum and not only quoad objectum. And he before saith out of Scotus and with him [Ideo dico sicut dicit Doctor noster, Quod prius Deus videt merita quam reprobum; licet prius non vide at merita quam eligat:] which is the commonest Doctrine of the Schoolmen and other Papists, as well as Augustine's.

701. So D'Orbellis in 1. d. 41. [Et dicunt quidam quod non est alia ratio quare Deus istum elegit, & non illum, nisi quia placet—Eo enim ipso quod placet, ideo rectum est, propter summam ipsius Voluntatis rectitudinem—Sic dicit Scotus, quod licet non videatur aliqua ratio praedestinationis à parte praedestinati, aliquo modo prior praedestinatione; Reprobationis tamen est aliqua ratio, propter quam scilicet ista actio terminatur ad hoc objectum & non ad illud:—Cum Reprobare sit Velle Damnare, Reprobatio habet ex parte objecti, rationem, scilicet peccatum finale praevisum—Non videtur autem dicendum conformiter de Praedestinatione & Reprobatione; Quia Bona Deo principaliter attribuuntur, Mala autem nobis. Quia tamen▪ Apostolus videtur totum ho • imperscrutabile relinquere, Rom. 9. O altitudo, &c. ideo dicit Scotus quod eligatur opinio quae magis placet; Dum tamen servetur Libertas Divina, absque injustitia. Hoc autem debet fieri absque assertione pertinaci. Rationes namque particulares, propter quas ex parte diversorum Divina inferuntur judicia, sunt imperscrutabiles.]

But note, that as to the first part of Reprobation, non velle dare gratiam, Scotus, Mayro, &c. hold it to be nothing, or no act at all.

702. And what D'Orbellis next addeth of Bonaventure setteth us at no further odds. [Bonav. dicit quod licet non sit aliqua ratio Causalis, seu meritoria, praedestinationis à parte praedestinati, (quia siquis posset de condigno mereri primam gratiam, tunc Gratia non esset Gratia) Potest tamen esse aliqua ratio congruitatis & condeoentiae praedestinationis; Non quantum ad significatum quod est Volitio Divina, sed quantum ad Connotatum quod est Gratia & Gloria. Potest enim dici quod Deus praedestinat istum proper praevisionem bonorum operum ut aliquo modo sunt à libero arbitrio: Licet enim Gratificatio vel Justificatio sit principaliter à Divina Voluntate, hoc tamen est cum cooperatione & praeparatione liberi arbitrii; quia ut Aug. Qui fecit te sine te non justificabit te sine te. Unde cum peccator facit quod in se est, meretur de congruo justificari, seu secundum quid, ex condecentia Divinae liberalitatis.]

But the true meaning of this is no more than Protestants commonly hold, that God giveth special Grace usually to such only as are prepared for it by more common Grace; and so this preparation is quid praevisum in God's decree, but no Cause of his Act of Volition or decree.

703. And in the next words he granteth, that even this Preparation to special grace, is not always necessary, [Deus tamen sine aliqua praeparatione & cooperatione aliquos justificat, ut patet de sanctificatis in utero, & de parvulis post baptismum ad coelum evolantibus; aliis sine baptismo decedentibus— &c.]

704. And though they oft say, that God would have all men saved quantum in se, they mean not, that God doth all to it that he can, but that he maketh all capable of salvation, and so far helpeth them, that the failing shall not be on his part. For so Bonavent. ubi supra in 1. d. 47. a. 1. q. 1. explaineth it, plainly adding, that here God's will connoteth not salvation itself, but only the said Capacity and helps.

705. Obj. But many say, that Predestination doth not necessitate the eve • . Answ. Twisse told you before that we are agreed all in this; It inferreth a Logical Necessity Consequentiae, though not a physical Consequentis: As Bonavent. 1. d. 40. q. 2. Ex parte rei evenientis nullam: ex parte De • praescientis aliquam; scilicet immutabilitatis certitudinem: Yea, as to grace and salvation it is certainly Causal as they confess.

706. Obj. Many say, that a predestinate person may be damned. Answ. Even as D'Orbellis in 1. d. 40. a. 2. [Ista propositio, [Pradestinatus potest damnari] est falsa in sensu composito; & vera in sensu divise] Vide explicat. It is unchristian and unmanly to revile men that say the same that we do, merely through distaste, or because we will not be at the labor to understand them.

707. Obj. We cannot be reconciled to them that give so much to man's free-will. Ans. How much do you mean? It's a dreadful thing to hear some good men ignorantly blaspheme God, as the chief cause of every villainy in the World, merely • poh a factious prejudice and partial opposition to other men, whom they never understood! Would it please you to hear that God draggeth men into sin as by the hair of the he • , when the Devil himself can but allure them? I know it would not. D • but make it plain as a granted thing, that God doth not Will or Love sin, and do more to Cause it, than the Devil, or the wickedest sinner himself doth, and you can scarce tell how to differ from the greater part of the Schoolmen themselves, or sober moderate Lutherans that are thought to be dissenters. Let it be the Devils work, and no good Christians, to paint God in the shape of the Father of lies and all iniquity: Our God is Holy, and Holiness becometh all that draw near him, and is the mark of all that shall see his face. Dear Brethren, let not us that daily and justly condemn ourselves for sin, and take such odious titles to ourselves, make ourselves yet Holier▪ than God, and make God a far greater Lover and Cause • of sin than we are.

I will add one description of Free-will out of the last named Schoolman, D'Orbellis a Scotist, in 2. sent. d. 25. dub. 2. And tell me what the most rigid opposer of Free-will can desire more.

I think this is as high as you can desire. And yet there is nothing in all this, but what both parties may well bear with, and it hath indeed much soundness in it. But here he treateth only about equality of Liberty, but how much of it the unsanctified have, he elsewhere showeth, and I have oft told you how much the most are agreed in it.

708. To conclude, The heart and sum of all our differences is how to make God the total first Cause of all Good, and not to make him the Cause of sin, and the damner of man for that which he himself insuperably causeth. I hope both sides hold fast both the conclusions (that our sin and destruction is chiefly of ourselves, but in God is our help, and our good and happiness is all from Him.) And if they both hold this, it is not the difficulty of joining them together, and opening God's unsearchable methods, that must disjoynt us, and draw us to withdraw our Love, or contemn each other, or disturb the Churches peace and unity.

709. Gregory Ariminensis and Gabr. Biel have come so near the rigid Dominicans that the Reader may think that they plainly say the same of God's Causing all the Act of sin, as Alvarez, Twisse and Rutherford say. But let the Learned Reader note these things; 1. That over and over they affirm that though God Cause all the Act of sin, yet he is but the Causa partialis: I like not the phrase myself for the reasons before given; but by this they do greatly differ from the aforesaid Authors: see Greg. 2. d. 34, 35. ar. 3. frequently saying, that God is Causa partialis. And in answering Aureolus ad nonum he thus fully explaineth it:

Here note, that 1. He taketh not Causa totalis for the same with Solitaria. 2. That he asserteth only, that God causeth the Totum of the Act, but not by a total Causation of it: And that God's way or sort of Causation is not sufficient to cause it if man concurred not, which they say he freely doth, and could do otherwise.

710. So that these men's way of freeing God from being the cause of sin is like Scotus his; As if (as I before made the similitude) a Father to try his Childs obedience, bids him lift up a Stone, which he cannot do of himself; and the Father holdeth his hand and joineth his strength, yet not ad ultimum posse, but with a purposed restraint so far that if the Child will not put forth his degree of strength, it shall not be done. But who can comprehend the ways of Divine concourse?

711. And it is to be noted, that when Aureolus argueth, that [if God immediately concur, either he determineth man's act, or man determineth God's act, or neither; which are all absurd:] here Biel citeth Scotus as holding the third, and answering Neither, as no absurdity. But Greg. Arim. that seemeth to go higher, yet saith, [ Juxta modum loquendi arguentis dico quod Deus sequitur determinationem Voluntatis: non qu •• determinatio Voluntatis fit aliqua Entitas distincta à Voluntate & act • ejus, quia primo fiat à voluntate—nec intelligendo quod prius natura Viluntas agat actum quam Deus, proprie loquendo de priori natura: Quoniam tunc sequeretur quod posset illum agere, Deo non coagente.—Sed ad hunc sensum dico Deum sequi Determinationem Voluntatis; Quoniam ideo Deus agit illum actum, quia cum Voluntas agit. Et non ideo qu •• Deus agit, ideo Voluntas agit: & ideo magis proprie dicitur Deus coager • Voluntati in talem actum causandi, quam Voluntas dicatur coagere De • .] You see that these Nominals do toto coelo differ from Alvarez, T • isse and Rutherford. (And yet Alvarez would fain be moderate in that one Disputation which Dr. Twisse in a peculiar Digression oppugneth.)

712. And note, that the thing which moved Gregory to go so far as he doth is, Lest God should be denied to be the Cause of all Natural Entity: But if you set before the will, the Creator (or Chief Good) and the Creature (or sensual pleasure) the Act in genere as a Volition is an Entity, or modus entis: But who can prove that comparatively as it is terminated on the Creature, rather than on the Creator, it hath any Natural Entity, more than the act in genere; or any modality which God is not able to give a Creature power to cause, or not cause, witho •• predetermination from God or any other?

713. Yea, Ariminensis seemeth to mean this himself, when ibid. d. 34, 35. a. 2. ad 5. he saith [Deus • potest solus actum illum causare, & act •• odiendi, id est, qui est odium Dei, & mendacium etiam potest causare▪ Non tamen potest causare actum odiendi Deum, seu odium Dei: neq •• potest Causare Mendacium vel mentiri, neque potest causare actum •• lum; Quare quemcunque actum causaret solus, licet ill nunc sit Odi •• Dei vel mendacium, vel aliquis actus malus, si tamen Deus solus ill •• causaret, sicut potest illum causare solus, non esset actus, neque odi • m De • vel mendacium.] But whatever he thought, I have before answered this difficulty of the Entity of the acts of sin.

I mention Ariminensis judgment the rather, because the Learned Calvinists commend him: And I remember when I once asked Arch-Bishop Usher which of the Schoolmen he most valued as the soundest, he said Greg. Ariminensis.

714. Is not all this doctrine from these men cited conformable to the doctrine of the Synod of Dort? Who in the conclusion name many positions which they and all the Reformed Churches with them do, toto pect • re detestari, abhor with all their hearts: Among which one is, Deum n ••• puroque Voluntatis arbitrio, absque omni peccati ullius respectu vel intuit • , maximam mundi partem ad aeternam damnationem praedestinasse & creasse. And another is, Eodem modo quo electio fons est & causá fidei ac b • norum operum, reprobationem esse causam infidelitatis & impietatu: Another is, Multos fidelium infantes ab uberibus matrum innoxios abri •• & tyrannice in Gehennam praecipitari, adeo ut iis nec Baptismus, nec Ecclesiae in corum baptismo preces, prodesse queant.

And it is much to be noted, that in conclusion they desire all men to judge of the Doctrine of the Reformed Churches, not by Calumnies, nor by the Private sayings of some D • ctors, ant • ent or later, but by the public Confessions of the Churches, ••• and by the Declaration of this Synod. Therefore not by the extremes of Beza, Piscator, Spanh • m •• s, Twisse and Rutherford; but by what the Articles of the Churches subscribed by the Pastors do contain. Otherwise we shall be far more foolish than the Papists, who will not expose their Church to obioquy or division by standing to the sayings of Alvarez or Molina, or any private Doctor whosoever.

715. And it is notorious to any impartial-pe • user, that the whole fo •• of the Doctrine of the Church of England, in the Articles, Catechism, Liturgy, Homilies, and all their public Writings, was drawn up by men of Augustine's judgment, who were for absolute Election, and Universal sufficient Redemption and Grace ad posse, but for no Reprobation but on foresight of sin.

716. And it is greatly to be noted, with grief of heart, that among Good men, it is partly General prejudice, but chiefly the Interest of their Reputation with those among whom they live, which is the great impediment of the Churches Concord. The name of a Calvinist is so hateful among the Papists, that even the Predeterminant Dominicans who go higher than ever Calvin did, (and the Jansenists, who go as high in the main cause, and higher than the Synod of Dort,) do yet find it a matter of necessity to rail at Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, &c. lest their party should think that they are turned Heretics. And the Protestants that agree in some points with the Papists, are fain to rack the Papists words, to a worse sense than is meant, lest their fierce opposers should make men believe that they are half Papists, or err with them. And the moderate Calvinists are fain to stretch hard, that they may seem to differ more from the Arminians than they do, lest a self-conceited reviler should blot their names with the suspicion of Arminianism. O doleful case of all the Churches! But where Protestants are few and made odious by the Papists, as differing from them further than they do, there Reputation is not so great a temptation; And there they freely confess their concord, where they do not differ. And so in Colloquia Torunensi c. 4. de grat. depuls. Calum. sect. 5, 6. all the Reformed Churches of Poland with Joh. Bergius the Duke of Brandenburgs Chaplain, and others did profess, [Falso accusamur, quasi Mortis & Meriti Christi pr • omnibus sufficientiam negemus, aut virtutem imminuamus, cum potius idem hic quod ipsa Synodus Tridentina ses. 6. cap. 3. doceamus, viz. Etsi Christus pro omnibus mortuns sit, non omnes tamen mortis ejus beneficium recipere, sed eos duntaxat quibus meritum passionis ejus communicator. Causam etiam seu culpam, cur non omnibus communicetur, nequaquam in merito & morte Christi, sed in ipsis hominibus esse fatemur.] Here was no partial interest to make them afraid of being suspected to comply with Papists.

717. I end with this request to all my Brethren who by their averseness to the Doctrine of Common or Universal Grace, do keep open the Churches dangerous wounds, 1. That they will give Scripture leave to rule their judgments, and try whether it be possible to build special Grace, on any other foundation than presupposed common Grace? and whether to deny this, be not to deny the very tenor of the Gospel, and pull up the foundations of our Religion?

2. That they will but read over Davenants two dissertations, and the second Tome (at least) of the Learned Dallaeus his Apology against Spa • hemius, that is, The words of an hundred and twenty ancient Writers and Councils, beginning at Clemens Romanus, and ending with Theophylact, and sixty three Protestant Divines and Synods (to which I think I could add as many more, that speak more plainly to the point, or near it.) And if after all this they have so great a zeal to contract the Glory of God's Mercy, and deny his Grace, as that they will cast off the judgment of all the ancient Churches of Christ, and so many later, rather than acknowledge it, I shall cease disputing with them, and seek to quench the fire which they kindle in the Churches of Christ by Prayers and Tears.

The CONTENTS of these THESES cannot be well given you, without reciting too great a part of them: But rather than none, take this imperfect summary following.

• Sect. I.
  OF man's first State and the first Law, and its penalty. Whether Adam had a promise of Life? and whether that Promise or Covenant be now ceased as to all men? Page 27.
• Sect. II.
  Of the first Edition of the Law or Covenant of Grace, that it was made with all Mankind in Adam and Noah: Of the Promise to Abraham: Of the Terms of the first Edition of the Universal Covenant of Grace. How far it is a Law of Nature. How far those without the Israelitish Church were under it: Of the Israelites Covenant, pag. 31.
• Sect. III.
  Of Christ's Incarnation and our Redemption. The Law of Mediation. What Christ undertook for us: How far he represented us • The true nature of his Satisfaction. Of his Righteousness and Merits, pag. 37.
• Sect. IV.
  Of the Law of Grace or New Covenant in the last Edition. The Nature Conditions, and yet free Donations of it, pag. 42.
• Sect. V.
  Of the giving of the Holy Ghost: His common and special Works: The extent of the New Covenant: Of the state of those that have not the Gospel: And what Law they are under, pag. 45.
• Sect. VI.
  How far Christ died for all, and how far not, pag. 51.
• Sect. VII.
  The antecedent and consequent Will of God, explained. Of Justification by Faith. What faith it is; and what it doth, pag. 54.
• Sect. VIII.
  Of Justification by Christ's Righteousness imputed. The false sense of Imputation opened and fully confuted. The true sense asserted. Whether Christ paid our Idem or Tantundem? Whether he made his Satisfaction to God only as to a Rector, or as Dominus, vel pars laesa, or how? pag. 59.
• Sect. IX.
  Of the sorts of Justification: And first of constitutive Justification. Of Righteousness: How far it is or is not in our own habits or acts. What Right the Covenant giveth the baptized to following helps and degrees of Grace. Further, what must be in ourselves. Mans holiness is no dishonor to God's Grace. How far Christ strippeth us of our own Righteousness. More against the false sense of Imputation; Objections answered, pag. 69.
• Sect. X.
  Of Merit: The case plainly and briefly decided. The Gospel-Condition or Merit, is but the accepting a free Gift according to its nature. Whether we may trust to our own Faith, Repentance, Holiness. The last Argument for the false sense of Imputation, answered, pag. 79.
• Sect. XI.
  How Faith justifieth? whether as an Instrument? pag. 82.
• Sect. XII.
  How far Repentance is a Condition of the Covenant: And what it is: Whether Faith or it be first: How Faith and Love differ, pag. 83.
• Sect. XIII.
  Of the degrees of Pardon and Justification: Whether losable: And whether future sins be pardoned, pag. 85.
• Sect. XIV.
  Of Justification by Sentence of the Judge: What it is, ibid.
• Sect. XV.
  Of initial executive Pardon or Justification, in Sanctificati • How far necessary, yet imperfect, pag. 86.
• Sect. XVI.
  Of assurance of Pardon: Of doubting: Whether it be D ••• Faith to believe ones own Justification or Salvation. The Sp •• Testimony, pag. 88.
• Sect. XVII.
  Of love to God as the end of Faith; and foretaste of He ••• pag. 91.
• Sect. XVIII.
  Of Perseverance, and its certainty in order to the comfort •• certainty of Salvation. Few certain of Justification, and •••• of Perseverance. The words of the Synod of Dort. The •• thers Judgment about certainty of perseverance, pag. 93
• Sect. XIX.
  Of mortal Sin, or such as will not stand with the love of G •• and a state of Justification, pag. 103.
• Sect. XX.
  What Repentance for particular sins is necessary to par •• pag. 106.
• Sect. XXI.
  Some solution of all the former difficulties in twenty Prop •• ons, 108.
• Sect. XXII.
  Few certain of Salvation. The reconciling consequents of ••• pag. 112.
• Sect. XXIII.
  The case of Perseverance further opened and applied, pag. 113.
• Sect. XXIV.
  The sum and scope of this Discourse of Certainty, pag. 116.
• Sect. XXV.
  Degrees of falling, and danger, pag. 118.
• Sect. XXVI.
  Of final Justification at Judgment: More of the Agreem ••• Paul and James about Justification by Works, pag. 119.
• Sect. XXVII.
  Of the number of the glorified and the damned, pag. 123.

A PREMONITION.

MY work at present is but to lay down so much of the Christian Doctrine briefly, as is necessary to be understood for the reconciling of the Controversies about Predestination, Providence, Grace and Free-will: And therefore pass over • any other weighty Points, and must not stand largely to prove all • s I go, which carrieth its own evidence: The true nature of the first • awe or Covenant deserveth a more accurate discussion than I can here • ache; and much passeth as certain with some, which hath but little • roof.

And here I meet with these different Opinions: 1. Some say that the • ondition of the first Covenant was not Innocency, but sincerity: And • at Innocency was only a Duty, necessary necessitate praecepti, but not • edii: or that it was ut medium necessary ad melius esse, or to some cer •• in degrees of felicity, whereof it was a condition, but not to felicity it •• lf. And that the Covenant of Grace doth herein agree with it; both • f them damning man only for mortal sin, and punishing them tempo •• lly only for venial sin. And he seemeth to be of this mind, who saith •• at, Do this and live, or Innocency or Works was the Condition only • f Moses Law, but that Adhere and Vanquish was the Condition of the • rst Covenant: But these are ambiguous unsatisfactory terms: If the • eaning be, [Adhere to God and his Law by perfect Innocency, and van • uish all temptations to Sin,] this is the same with that Innocency which • e say was the Condition. But if he mean only, [Adhere to me sin • erely by love as thy Ultimate End, and vanquish all temptations which • old draw thee from me, to another Ultimate End or God,] this is • he same with the first opinion; which many Papists seem to hold.

2. But the more common Opinion is that which I assert, That Inno • ency was the Condition, not only of Life eternal, but of all the be • efits of God's Covenant, and the least sin the forfeiture of all.

They that are for the first Opinion think, that if Adam had committed • ut a small or venial sin (as a sinful thought or desire after the forbidden • ruit, without the act or full consent) it had been against God's natural Goodness and Justice to have condemned him to Hell for it. And con • quently that Christ died not to pardon the pains of Hell as due for such •• ttle sins; but only temporal smaller punishments.

But God best knoweth his own Nature; And nature telleth us, That • ll sin deserveth punishment: And he that sinneth, so far removeth his • eart from God, and forfeiteth his Spirit or Grace: And he that hath • nce so turned from God in the least degree, cannot of himself return • or heal himself; and had no promise of God's Grace to do it: And • herefore it is not to be supposed that he should sin no more, but such a • inute sin; for greater will come in presently at that breach, unless God • ecover him, which he was not in Justice bound to do: And no one know • th so well as God how much malignity is in the smallest sin; And it was as • asie for sinless Adam to have continued sinless, as for carnal men now • o forbear gross sin. And he that sinneth deserveth not Heaven or Life; • nd there are divers degrees of punishment in Hell, according to the degrees of Sin: And Christ died for all our sins: therefore they d • everyone deserve death: which consisted not with a right to Life: therefore not with a right to Heaven: And an immortal Soul was not naturally to be annihilated; therefore to live in some punishment as separated: And Rom. 3. 9. all were under Sin, yet all had not gross S •• ▪ Rom. 6. 23. The wages of Sin is Death. Rom. 5. 12. Death passed on all • , for that all have sinned. Rom. 2. 12. As many as have sinned with ••• Law, shall perish without Law. And we must pray for the pardon of a •• Sin: And unpardoned Sin will damn men. These are the reasons •• this side.

They of the other Opinion say, That the Gospel-Covenant show •• God's Nature as well as the first Law: That God had not been unjust i • deed, if he had permitted him to fall into great Sin, and so to peri •• who committed the least: for he so permitted Adam to commit the first that was before innocent: But the Justice of God bound him not so it do: nor would have damned a Lover of God, for a small Sin, no more than now: That we must not feign a Law which we cannot prove▪ That God changeth not his holy Nature, and therefore not that Law, which is the expression of it: That Christ died for all Sin, and all needs pardon; but that proveth not that the least deserved death, much less Hell; but that by Christ's Death the deserved punishment must be remitted; that all, even Infants, are guilty of mortal Sin in Adam: The Death is the wages of that Sin which brought it, but not of the least: That Adam 's Law was not severer than that by Moses, which saith, D • this and live, and yet condemned not men for smaller sins; That God proclaimeth pardon of some Sin, in the very Law of Nature as from his Nature, Exod. 34. and the Second Commandment, That Nature teacheth all the World to believe it: That God said not to Adam, [ •• the day that thou thinkest a vain thought,] but [That thou eatest,] &c. That mortal Sin is pardonable by Christ which else could not by the first Law: but God could otherwise have pardoned a vain thought, if he would: That no Text of Scripture saith, that every Sin deserveth Hell, nor is threatened with Death.]

And as the condition of the Penalty, so the condition of the Promise to Adam is here also controverted by Divines: 1. Some say that the condition of Life was personal, perfect, perpetual Obedience till ••• change; which God would make as he did by Enoch when it pleased him: (which seemeth to me the probablest Opinion).

2. Others think that Adam was to have continued in Eden forever under that same conditional Law (which is less probable.)

3. Others think, that had he over-come the first temptation, but so far as to adhere and vanquish, that is, to continue the love of God, and not to eat that Fruit, or commit any other mortal Sin, which of its nature killeth Love, he had been confirmed, as the promised Reward.

4. I have lately met with an exceeding ingenious M. S. (written partly against myself, after others) which asserteth, 1. That the Glory of Justice is the end of God's Government. 2. That Do this (perfectly) and live, or Sin (at all) and die, are the constant terms of Justice under every Covenant. 3. That if Adam had performed but one •• of Obedience, by that Law, he should have been rewarded with confirmation, or the Holy Ghost (as the Angels) and with everlasting life. 4. That now all our Reward is only the Act of God's Justice, giving •• life, as merited by us in Christ on the terms of the Law that saith, Do this and live, Sin and die; in whom we are perfectly innocent and rewardable; and we have no rewardable Righteousness, nor any to justify us; but perfect Innocency imputed; because as not to be a Sinner is no merit of a Reward, so pardon of Sin is no Title to a Reward, &c.

It is not my present task to clear up all these Difficulties, (having done more towards it in my Methodus Theology); but only so much as our present conciliatory work requireth: But yet because I and the matter in hand are nearly concerned in the M. S. I shall briefly animadvert on all the substance of it; having first said of the condition of the penalty but a few words.

I. I am loath to confound the certainties with the uncertainties, in this matter. 1. It is certain, that God's Law of Nature was man's first and principal Law; to which the supernatural Revelations were added, and comparatively few.

2. It is certain that God's Law was perfect, and that both as the impress and expression of God's perfect Wisdom and Holiness, and as the Rule of Perfection to Adam: And therefore that it obliged him to perfection.

3. But this Perfection to which he was obliged, was not at first, all that his nature would be capable of at last; It was not his duty the first hour of his life, to Know or Do as much as after the longest time and experience, and as much as in heavenly perfection: But he was bound to Know, and Love, and Do at first, as much as at that time his nature was capable of, supposing necessary Concauses and Objects.

4. This is summed up in, Loving God with all the Heart, Mind and Might. But the All in maturity and after full experience, and in Glory, is more than the All in inexperienced juniority. To know, love and obey God, to the utmost intention of his present natural Power, supposing due Objects, media and concauses, was Adam 's duty and all defectiveness herein was culpable, or sin.

5. All sin of its own nature deserveth punishment: Therefore so would the least culpable thought or word in Adam, or the least culpable defect in the extent or intention of any holy affection in him.

6. It is certain that Adam 's eating the forbidden Fruit, or any one such sin as consisteth not with the predominancy of his Love to God as God, in habit, such as is now inconsistent with true Grace, and is called mortal, was to be punished with death temporal and eternal, according to the Justice of that Law.

7. They are different questions, 1. What God might do. 2. What he would do, (as decreed). 3. What he must do, (as necessary because of Justice or Veracity), to the breaker of that Law. And it is clear that God might, as an Act of Justice, punish the least culpable thought, or remissness of degree of Love, with Annihilation, or with any pain-everlasting, which to the Sinner were no worse than Annihilation. Because, 1. Antecedently to his Law, he might have done that much as an affliction without sin. 2. And after he did no way (that I know of) oblige himself to the contrary to a Sinner, before the Covenant of Grace. 3. And having threatened punishment in general, he might choose what punishment he saw fit.

8. What God would do as decreed, the prediction or the event only can tell us.

9. That God must (by necessity of Justice and Truth) punish the least sinful thought or remissness, with some degree of punishment, according to that Law, seemeth to me somewhat clear.

1. And yet it is more clear that it is various degrees of punishment which are comprised in the word [Death] or [Filius mortis] in the threatening; And that we cannot say, that Justice made it necessary to God to punish the least vain thought or remissness with the greatest punishment, or damnation.

But (as to the uncertainties) 1. With what degree of punishment God in Justice must, or would have punished a vain thought, or any sin consistent with his habitual prevalent love? 2. Or whether a vain thought must needs have separated Soul and Body, or caused that which we call Hell? 3. Or whether God could in Justice have pardoned that vain thought, upon less satisfaction than the sufferings of Christ? These with many others are questions too hard for me, what ever they may be to wiser men.

But I am satisfied that God would never have damned in Hell any Soul that had the habitual predominant love of God, though culpably remiss, and otherwise sinful, while he remained such; yea that Hell and such love of God are inconsistent: And therefore if any such sin would have damned Adam, it must be by further quenching and expelling the Spirit of Grace, or forfeiting and losing Divine assistance, and so first losing that habit of love. The rest I leave to the more illuminated.

II. Now as to the M. S. (said to be written by a young man of New England, deceased, M. W.) it hath so much accurateness, that in reading it, I greatly lament the Authors death, before maturity and converse had rectified some of his notions, and he had longer improved his excellent understanding for the Church. And because my Doctrine is particularly opposed in it, I shall stay to animadvert on the substance of the Book.

And it may be reduced to these Propositions.

1. The great fundamental point of it is, That man was made to glorify God's Justice forever.

Animad. This is a great truth, not well considered by many: But it is but a part of the truth, which is, That man was made to glorify God's Vit •• Power, Wisdom and Love, and is governed eminently by Wisdom, making ORDER, and justly keeping it, together with mercy, because the glory of Holiness and Love also is the end. Which I have more carefully opened hereafter.

§. 2. M. S. The reason of special government is, That man is causa consilip; Though as he desireth and seeketh good in general, he is but a natural Agent: And therefore Twisse erreth in saying, that God • iay punish an innocent man, because he may afflict a beast.

Ans. 1. By causa consilio he meaneth a rational free Agent, having an Intellect and Free-will; This indeed maketh and proveth man a subject made to be morally governed. But when he had laid all his stress on this Free-will under the name of causa consilio, he went too far in seeming with Gibieuf (whom he citeth and followeth as his great Light▪) to confine the name of true liberty to the Amplitude and Holiness of the Will, which is another kind of Liberty: And (as Armatus truly saith) Gibieuf was fitter for a scraphick pious Discourse (in a Platonic strain) than for such Controversies. 2. As Rada and other Scotists well prove, there is no Act of the Will, even to good in general, which is not free, though some be necessary, and the inclination is natural and not free. 3. Yea he proveth, that there is no such thing as a Volition of any good ingenere, saving as the generical nature of good is found in some particular (in esse cognito.) 4. Twisse was not so weak as to call that p • nishment which is not for sin, but calleth it Affliction or Cruciatum only. And he speaketh not what God may do by his ordinate Will: But I think that you are in the right, and he in the wrong, because the very making us men, and so governed Subjects, is a declaration of God's ordinate Will, not to make us miserable but for sin.

3. M. S. Adam's whole man was sanctified, and so fitted to obey, and to glorify Justice: His free-will was not an indifferency, but (as Gib.) that noble virtue of his Soul, by which he could go above all created good, so that Liberty and Eupraxy or Obedience are all one: But we cannot stir an inch to God, above the Creature. Liberty is to imitate God, whose Will closeth with himself, and resteth in himself forever: And mutability is but an adjunct of our Liberty.

An. I have better opened and distinguished Liberty before, Lib. 1. Natural Liberty is to be distinguished from moral, which you describe; and vehemently assert the former under the name of causa consilio that cannot be forced: But mere indifferency or mutability is no Liberty itself.

4. M. S. Adam was not made with notions in his Mind, no more than with colors in his Eyes; but he was made able and fit to see God in the frame of Nature, especially in his own Will, as inclined to universal good—.

An. Scaliger and others think, that Idea's are born in us, which maketh the Chicken fly at the shadow of the Kite, &c. But I rather say as you, that it is but a Disposition; which will so easily act, that some call it an Idea, and it is the same thing that they mean while they differ about the name.

§. 5. M. S. Do this and live, is the way that Justice will be glorified in: And that doing would merit life, Adam either knew by nature, or supernaturally, at least was confirmed in it by supernatural revelation.

An. This is all true.

§. 6. M. S. Do this and live, as the only terms of life are a Catholic and Theological axiom: Not the words; but Energetick Wisdom printed on the frame. And the meaning is, close with the last end; or with the true Universal God as such, which is the sum of the Decalogue: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, &c. The Wills closing with God: And Obedience is in the subordinate faculties executing the pleasure of the Will.]

An. 1. Obedience is first in the Will itself. 2. Tou do not intelligibly acquaint us whether by [Do this] you mean any sincere closing with God as▪ God and our End, above all Creatures, as the godly now do, though with culpable remissness and imperfections; or only the most perfect Love and Obedience, without any imperfection or remissness, or vain irregular thought that is culpable. But by [Do this] I perceive you mean, Take God for thy God, and love, adore, and trust him.

§. 7. M. S. This was to be expressed by eating of the Tree of Life, and not of that of Good and Evil, sacramentally, to acknowledge also the Sovereignty of God.

An. 1. All Obedience formally respecteth God's Sovereignty. 2. No doubt the Trees were symbolical, and the remembrance of them should yet teach us to prefer living to God, before a selfish, disturstful, needless knowledge; the increase of which increaseth sorrow. 3. But that Adam was commanded to eat of the Tree of Life, I cannot prove, unless the general obligation to choose the best was as a Command.

§. 8. M. S. To be naturally happy is proper to God: therefore Adam was to be led to it freely by a Covenant.

An. To be happy necessarily, and independently, and primarily, is proper to God: But you can never prove it any contradiction or impossible for God to make a Creature naturally happy; nor that there are not such.

§. 9. Here the M. S. citeth some words of his Gibieuf, making our Being in God initially, and finally to be our state of amplitude and liberty, and our going out from God, to be our particularity and state of necessity; as if we were pre-existent in God, and our individuation ceased upon o •• return into him as our End.

An. But these are Platonic Phantasms; And Gibieuf who was a devout Oratorian, and talketh too oft of our Deification, as Benedict •• de Benedictis, Barbanson, Baker, and other Friars that talk phanatically, must be read with caution and exception; and as the Soul need not fear too near a Union with God, as the loss of its individuation, so neither must it desire or hope for such.

§. 10. M. S. An unchangeable state of Happiness in the love of God, is called Eternal Life.

An. No doubt but that is called Eternal Life in the fullest sense, which actually endureth to eternity as to that particular Subject: And so, 1. The life of Glory perfectively. 2. And a confirmed state of Sanctity here initially, are usually called Eternal Life. But 3. Whether the lossable state, which the Angels fell from, and Adam fell from, or that measure of Grace, which the ancient Fathers thought the justified may fall from, be never so called also, I cannot prove.

§. 11. M. S. Adam's promised Happiness, was, 1. Essential, in this perfect holiness or love of God. 2. Complemental, in the enjoying God i • all the sanctified Creatures in that Paradise, but not to be translated to Heaven, which Christ only procureth us.

An. I inclined to that Opinion 26 years ago, when I wrote the Aphorisms which you oppose: But I now incline more to the contrary, and rather think man should have been translated to Heaven as Enoch and Elias were, upon many reasons, which I now pass by: Though I take it yet to be scarce certain to us.

§. 12. M. S. The Holiness of God, is his loving himself as his End; And the third Person proceeding by a reflex act of the infinite Will and self-love of God, is therefore called the Holy Spirit.

An. 1. This notion of God's Holiness (that it is his Self-love) is not to be contemned; It seemeth to be so, with this limitation, that you confine not his Holiness to this, but take this only as the most eminent among the inadequate conceptions of it: For his whole Transcendency, in Being, Life and Knowledge, as being adoreable by the Creature, and its End, and the Fountain of all created Goodness, and specially of Morality, is also God's Holiness. 2. But the saying that God is his own End, seemeth improper, though tolerable if spoken but analogically: For God neither hath nor is to himself a Cause nor an Effect, a Beginning nor an End. 3. That the third Person proceedeth by a reflex Act of the infinite Will, many School-men boldly say: And so some say, that he is God's actual self-love, which is • he same that you call his Holiness: And some say, that he is the Divine Will or Love considered in itself, as distinct from Vital Power, and Intellect (or Wisdom.) But of this I have spoken more largely else-where.

§. 13. M. S. Adam's promised Reward was, to be fixed in an unchangeable state of pleasing God, by this Holy Spirit: not by infusing any new quality which should unchangeably fasten him to the Rule, (for no created thing can unchangeably keep a man from falling.)

An. 1. The promise to Adam is very obscure: But Happiness it must needs be, and everlasting: 2. But it is past my reach to conceive how the Spirit of God can fix man in perfect holiness without any fixing quality (as it's called) on his Soul. A constant Act the Soul must have: And 1. If that Act be caused by any Divine Impulse, disposing the Soul so to act, then that disposition is a quality. 2. And if there be not both disposition and habit, then the Soul will not in Glory be habitually, or qualitatively holy, but only actually. 3. And a habit-acting being perfecter than an act without a habit (or inclination) the Soul will be more imperfect in Glory, than in this state of Grace. 4. Operari sequitur esse: God fitteth all his Creatures to their works. And as when he will give Immortality, he will give a Nature fit for Immortality, even indissoluble and incorruptible; so when he giveth perpetuity of Love, he giveth a nature or habits fit for perpetual Action. Christ saith, A good Tree bringeth forth good fruit, and an evil Tree evil fruit: Make the Tree good, and his fruit good. 5. The Operations of Love in Glory, should be ex potentia aut violentia, aut neutra, if there were no intrinsic disposition or inclination to them. In a word, it is a contradiction, for a Soul to be perfectly holy, and not have the perfection of inclination to its Acts.

3. But if the meaning were, that no holy quality alone sufficeth, without God's Influx, that were no more than what must be said of every Creature: without Divine Influx no Creature can be or operate a moment: No created thing of itself, without God, can continue; How then should it keep a man from falling: But if the Soul have anymore goodness of nature or inclination in it than the Devils have, it must be a created thing, or God himself: If only God, that proveth not a Saint to be himself better than a Devil, as to nature or disposition, but only that God in him is better.

His reason why the Sun is naturally fixed to its Operations, but not a glorified Soul, is (§. 14. M. S.) that one is a natural, and the other a voluntary Agent: One, as Gibieuf saith, Non agit, sed agitur, the other doth agere & non tantum agitur.]

An. 1. Gibieuf and you were deceived, in thinking that such naturals non agunt: Passive matter doth not Act ex principio essentiali (unless Dr. Glissons and Campanellas Doctrine hold true.) But the three Active Natures, Intellectual, Sensitive and Vegetative (and so Fire and the Sun) do ex principio Activo essentali agere: but nothing doth Act, without an Antecedent Influx to action from the first Cause, in which it is passive: For no Creature is Independent. 2. Voluntas est quaedam Natura, quamvis libera: To move naturally only and not freely is proper to Agents merely natural, distinct from free: But to move freely, and yet from a fixed principle, which shall infallibly determine the Soul to act freely, is not a contradiction; nor that which Gibieuf should deny to the glorified.

§. 15. M. S. Man, though a Creature, is the first Cause of his own action: He moveth and sets himself on work: else he were not causa consilio: But not immutable: else he were no Creature.

An. You set up Free-will and Power more grossly in terms than I dare do, though, I suppose, our meaning is the same. Had I said thus, what had I heard? I only say, that man may be a causa prima secundum quid, of the moral specification or modification of his own Actions: But he is simpliciter no causa prima of the Action in genere actionis: else he were God. But a causa principalis he may be called, though not prima. 2. You never proved that God cannot make a Creature naturally immutable dependently on himself, that is, such as will never change unless God change them; nor that Jesus Christ is not such in his Humanity.

§. 16. M. S. This confirmation is not by being in Heaven; but by the Holy Ghosts special working on the Soul, revealing still God's Perfections to it.

An. And doth this Operation of the Holy Ghost make the Soul never the better, in nature or disposition, but only in Act? Though it's true, that no habits immutably fix without the Influct of the Holy Ghost.

§. 17. M. S. Merit is the suitableness of the work to the wages.

An. Merit is manifold, and needs better explication: In the Comm • tative Justice of mere Proprietors, merit is indeed the Comparative value of things, and in works, their suitableness as you say to the wages, that is, their equal worth. But in distributive governing Justice, there is no wages, but only Reward: And merit is the moral aptitude for Reward: which is as various as the Law is that one is governed by: There are five sorts of Law, that by five sorts or ways of Justice, require five sorts of merit: 1. God's Law of Innocency to Adam: where Justice called nothing, but personal perfect Obedience, Merit: 2. God's Law to the Mediator, who was obliged perfectly to keep, 1. The whole Law of Nature. 2. The Law of Moses. 3. A peculiar Law of Mediation (to die, rise, do Miracles, &c.) The keeping of all this was Christ's Merit. 3. There is Christ's Law of Grace to fallen man (in the first, and in the perfect Editions,) where our keeping of it, is by Gospel-Justice called in Scripture 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , our worthiness or merit, that is, in tantum, secundum quid, in relation to that Law. That is to repent and believe, to love God and obey him sincerely. 4. There is the Law of Moses, peculiar to the Jews, which hath its peculiar required merit. 5. And there are the Laws of Men appointed and allowed of God, which have their peculiar Justice and Merit. All these are not to be confounded, much less all denied, as if there were no merit but between Proprietors in Commutative Justice; In which sense no Creature can merit of God.

§. 18. M. S. According to that Covenant, any one Act of Obedience in Adam would have merited confirmation and eternal life; that is, one act of holy love.

An. I believe it not, because it is not written, nor naturally revealed, that I know of. My reasons against it are, 1. It is dangerous to add to God's Word.

2. The words [In the day that thou eatest thou shalt die] seemeth to look further than to one first act or day, and is as much as whensoever thou eatest; though he should obey till that time.

3. It is utterly improbable that Adam did not perform one Act of Love or Obedience before his Fall. For, 1. We are uncertain how long he stood; However confident some Rabbins, and Broughton and some others are, that it was the same day in which he was created. 2. You confess he was made with powers sanctified and fitted to obey. 3. God's Law of Love was written in his heart, and as old as himself; and could not but oblige a fit subject to the act. And he must sin all that while that he loved not God as God. 4. He had many thoughts and affections all that while; which were sinful if not animated by holy Love, and done in Obedience to God. 5. He spent some time, which was sinfully spent, if not spent in Love and Obedience. 6. God spake to him, and so had sensible Communion with him, which must needs oblige him to some love. 7. He had a Law given him to dress and keep the Garden, which if he accepted not by consent in Obedience to God, he sinned. 8. He gave names to all the Creatures upon God's bringing them to him; which must be done obediently or sinfully. 9. He had the Law of Marriage given him, with the Woman; which if he received not in love and obedience he sinned. 10. He had all the World before him to show him God's Perfections, and if yet he had not one act of love to God as God, he heinously sinned. 11. He had the Law of Love and Obedience given him by way of Covenant, that is, binding him presently to consent; And he could not delay a willing consent one minute or hour without sin: And consent is Love and Obedience in the first act. 12. He loved himself, and his Wife, and other Creatures before his Fall: But if he loved not God before, then he all that while loved himself, his Wife, and all the Creatures more than God, yea without God: And then they were his Idols. 13. Else he never used one Creature holily before his Fall, and therefore sinfully. 14. You make Adam to have had less actual good before his Fall than the weakest Christian now; If not than many wicked men; who have some moral good secundum quid, though not simpliciter.

4. I do not think that the Reward which Christ was to have for his fulfilling the Law was immutability or confirmation: For I think he had that in his very nature, by the Unity of the Divine and Human in one Person. But I think that the perfect Glory of his Humanity was part of his Reward, Phil. 2. 7, 8, 9. Heb. 12. 23, &c. And therefore that Glory hath much more in it, than confirmation in Grace: But it's plain in the Gospel, that it was not only one Act of Obedience, which was Christ's condition, in order to his receiving the Fruits or full Reward of his Merits: But it was perfect Holiness of Nature and Life to the end of his course on Earth. Else you must say that Christ's first Act of Obedience was his performance of his Covenant-Condition, and all the rest for some other purpose only; which is absurd.

5. One act of our Obedience now is not the fulfilling of all the Condition of the Covenant of Grace, nor entitleth us alone to Glory, unless God cut off our life as soon as that act is done: Perseverance to the end is part of our Condition of Glory. And we know of no such difference between Adam 's Covenant or Case and ours, as will prove it otherwise with him.

6. Else it would make the Condition of the Covenant of Grace to be much harder and severer than of the Law of Innocency; which is not likely: To perform one act of Love and Obedience, is not so hard as to do it to the death, though we lose our lives in the expressions of it.

Object. But our first Faith giveth us Right to the Spirit of Confirmation and Immutability, though more must be done for Perfection.

Answ. 1. It appeareth then that Perfection and Glory is more than Confirmation. 2. It is certain, that the Regenerate are mutable as to the degrees of Grace, and are far from Perfection at the first. 3. The generality of the Fathers and ancient Churches thought that true Justification, and Right to Heaven, and true Love to God, was lost by many: And Austin himself and his Followers so thought. 4. And they that think otherwise yet know, that Glory is still given us (quoad jus in the Promise) on condition of our perseverance: And we should hardly find so many Threatenings against them that fall away, if all might so easily know that the first act of Obedience doth so fix us, and give us in justice a Right to Immutability.

§. 19. M. S. The Arguments to prove that any one Act had the promise of Immutability and Glory are these, Argument 1. If God were to declare his rewarding Justice, then he must reward one act. Thus Bradwardi •• also chideth his Master Lombard, as inclining to Pelagius, for holding that Adam could have forborne Sin by his Free-will, without God's sp • d • l Grace, that is, his Will that so it should be: which he saith was necess • ry before the Fall as well as since: and that else Adam by once not s •• ning, when tempted, had merited Confirmation, as he saith the Angels did, being tempted by Leviathan, lib. 2. c. 10.

An. 1. God was not obliged to any Reward, but according to the tenor of his Law. Prove that his Law promised Glory or Immutability for one act? 2. Bonum est ex causis integris: one act is but a small pa •• of a man's life. The Promise was to the whole course only. 3. God did reward every act: His acceptance, and the continuance of all • he blessings of that Paradise, and the comfort of his Love, was a gre •• Reward.

§. 20. M. S. If one act of Obedience deserved unchangeable Happines • then God must bestow it. But, &c.]

An. I deny the minor: One act deserved it not. No act deserved in Commutative Justice: And no act deserved it of governing Justice, but such as the Law antecedently made it due to.

§. 21. M. S. Merit, it is a fuitableness of the work to the wages. ••• that please God are under his good pleasure; the fruit of which must be ••• enjoying of his Spirits infinite assistance. This Adam might have claimed •• Justice, and gloried: for one act deserveth a Reward.]

An. This is sufficiently answered; 1. Wages strictly taken is M •••• given by a Proprietary commutatively: It's blasphemy to say that God can owe any Creature such, for he can receive nothing but his own. The word when used to us, is improperly taken: But premium a Reward we have; but no work deserveth that, but by the ordinate Justice of the Law. Some few Papists talk of a dignity ex proportione oper •• , but the Scotists and the wisest of them deny any but, 1. Ex congruitate. 2. Ex pacto. Your suitableness may signify either, 1. A congruity ad fines regiminis; or else ad premium qua promissum: And thus it's true▪ But it's not proved that any one act was such. 2. Or it may • ignifie a suitableness in proportion ex simplici dignitate operis, obliging the Governor antecedently to his Law. 2. Or obliging God as Proprietor to compensation; And so it is untrue, that Merit is a suitableness of the work to the wages, here.

2. It's unproved that God's pleasedness must ever be shown by the Spirits infinite assistance: or that one act deserved this. It's unlike that the Angels that kept not their first state, did never one act of Obedience, nor were never under God's approbation; Prov. 16. 7. When a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh his Enemies to be at peace with him: God saith, This •