The Church of Englands Antithesis to Arminianism

To the Christian Reader.

CHristian Reader, I here present unto thy view, and prostrate to thy Censure, a compendious Summary of those scattered Evidences; a concise Catalogue of those eminent Writers, and illustrious Witnesses of our Mother Church, since the beginning of her Reformation to this Instant; who have positively maintained, and punctually defended those 7. Anti-Arminian Theses, which I here prove: but diametrally oppugned, yea constantly condemned their 7. opposite erroneous Arminian Tenants which I here disprove, to be, the ancient, established, and resolved Doctrines of our English Church. The multitude of my other distractions, and inevitable interruptions, together with the narrow scantling of those few Winter days, I had for to compose it in, have denied it that exact mature Summer perfection, which others may expect, myself desire. Accept it therefore as a Winter fruit, impatient of a tedious Summer ripening, which might perchance add much unto its fullness, but derogate from its seasonableness. The Wise man hath informed: That to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven: and that everything is beautiful, (yea only beautiful and useful) in its time. I have therefore chosen to thrust out this Antithesis more incomplete and mutilated then I did desire; hoping that its seasonable and timely birth (if the unexpected and unhappy dissolution of our present Parliament hath not made it now abortive, or unseasonable) shall excuse, will salve its hasty, its immature Nativity. This Treatise consists of two parts; the one, the Records, the Acts, and Monuments of our Church; the other, the Names and Testimonies of our Writers.

The special and more public Records and Evidences of our Church which tend unto our purpose, I have here at large recited: The Authors and Authorities, which are m •• y, I have only named, and so past over with a brief quotation of their works, their Chapters, Pages, and those Editions which I fellow, (which I thought good to specify, for the greater certainty and more speedy search: Their words, their copious passages, and discourses touching our present Conclusions, I have purposely omitted, not related, for sundry swaying reasons: First, to avoid prolixity, and to keep this petty Treatise from swelling into an excessive Volume, which it must needs have done, had I transcribed the one moity of the ensuing Quotations in their latitude. Secondly, because the most, the chief of all these Books, and Authors, are obvious and common unto all men's view; so that their bare Quotation is sufficient, their Transcript needless. Thirdly, to encourage learned Readers, (especially, our young ungrounded Scholars, and Divines) who desire satisfaction in these much agitated and perplexed Controuersies, to read, yea, studiously to peruse the works, and writings of our vnparalleld home-bred Authors, who are generally honored in all Forreine Churches, despised and neglected nowhere but at home, and now lately more then ever. Strange it is to see, and lamentable to consider, how the excellent, Orthodox, eminentest, and learned Impressions of the most transplendent Lamps, and Ornaments of our Church (whose very names strike terror into our Romish Adversaries, admiration into our Forraigne Friends,) are now so much dishonored (as Prophets for the most part only are) in their own native soil, and Fathers house, that many young pragmatical Scholars, some grave, more young Divines, who reverence and adore all Popish Schoolmen, (which oft impoyson, and corrupt their judgments,) as if they were some Saints or petty God's, disdain for to peruse, much less subscribe unto them: accounting it a disparagement to their reading, so much a • once to vouch them, unless it be by way of censure or control. How venerable are the names and memoryes; how sweet, how graceful, and delightful the poisonous Works of Aquinas, Lombard, Scotus, Suarez, Bellarmine, and such like Popish Schoolmen (whom many make the groundwork and foundation of their Divinity studies, whence they smell and stink of Popery and Neutrality ever after, to their own perdition, and our Churches prejudice) unto some; who cannot brook the Honorable names and pious Works of Calvin, Beza, Zanchi, Junius, or other Orthodox foreign Protestants: much less, reuolue, digest, approve, or magnify the venerable Names, the vnparalleld Writings of our own Martyr, Bucer, Tyndale, Jewel, Fox, Whitaker's, Fulke, Babington, Reinolds, Perkins, Willet, Abbot, • ield, White, Bilson, Morton, Carlton, Usher, Prideaux, Benefield, Ames, and the like; who far transcend all Popish Writers, not only in Orthodoxic of Matter, but in Art, Solidity, and depth of Learning. Alas, it grieves me to consider (and I hope our vigilant Watchmen will lay it near to heart, as being an ominous presage, a fatal preamble to our Religions downfall, if it be not in time prevented:) that not only all kind of Pseudo-Lutheran and Arminian; but even of Jesuitical Popish books (which have arrived here of late in great variety and abundance, without the least restraint,) are now more diligently inquired after, more speedily and greedily bought up and vented, though at excessive rates; more studiously, more commonly read, more generally quoted, more plausiblie vouched in Sermons, Schools, and Writings; more highly magnified in the hearts and lips of many, then the best and learnedest of all Forraigne, or our own vn-matched protestant Writers, whose Impressions almost canker for want of use, and sometimes perish in the Printers hands, for want of Chapmen for to vent them.

It is the policy of our Romish Ahithophel's, to train up their Scholars in their own Popish Authors, and to inhibit the transportation, much more the reading of any Protestant (yea of some Popish) Writers, without a special license, under pain of their Inquisition Slaughter-house; for fear they should convert their Readers, yea quite subvert their Antichristian Babel, and shake the rotten Pillars of their Machiauillian state-Religion, (consarcinated and made up of Heresy, Pollicie, Luxury, Pride, and Covetousness, the greatest Opposites to Religion,) which cannot once withstand their strong assaults: And shall we then give free allowance to their pernicious Books, who thus exile our true soul-saving Authors? Is it no blow, no danger, think we, to our Religion, to suffer or persuade young Scholars to skip from Aristotle, to some Popish Schoolmen; or to give open Hospitality, and free welcome to all Popish, Arminian, and other seducing foreign Writers, which have lately turned our Faith, into mere doubting; our Religion, into Quaerees; our Scriptures, into fancies: our Grace into Free-will, or Nature: our Communion Tables, into Altars; our Cathedral Praying, into Piping, our Substance, into Ceremony: our Devotion, into Superstition; our Zeal, into Neutrality; our Perseu • rance, into Apostasy; and the certainty of our Salvation, into a bare Contingency? Alas, these cursed fruits are sufficient testimonies of those several dangers, of those varieties of mischiefs which result from hence. O therefore let us now at last (especially before we are thoroughly grounded, and settled in our own undoubted Religion:) reject these pestilent, seducing, yea State-disturbinge Writers, (which will prove our combustion, our ruin at the last, unless they be in time suppressed or restrained,) and cheerfully betake our selves unto the serious and delightful study of our own incomparable Authors, (who are therefore vnderualued by us, because they are our own) who will re-establish, re-confirm us in our Ancient Faith, reduce us to our true Religion: exile all Popish Ceremonies, and Arminian Nouelties; reconcile and comprimise our present Differences, and settle such Peace, such Unity in our Church and State, as shall secure our selves, and daunt our • oes for future times.

•• othing is there that doth more unsettle us in Religion, then the neglect, contempt, and ignorance of the Scriptures, and our own approved Writers, with our over-studious dotage upon Popish and Arminian foreigners; Let us therefore quite abandon their poisonous Works, at leastwise read them as the Books of Heretics; to know, avoid, reject them, not retain them: to answer or refell them, not admire them; to discover their Errors, not embrace them: and now at last betake our selves unto our own approved Authors, especially those here quoted, who will put a Period to all these new Arminian Controuersies, which now disturb our Peace. The Apostle informs us, that the spirits of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets: Let us therefore submit our spirits to the spirits and doctrine of all those famous Martyrs, Prophets, and Fathers of our Church, whose works I have here recited, and then Popery and Arminianism will prove odious to us, which have little in them for to make them amiable. Not to speak of Popery which besots so many, what beauty, what spiritual sweetness, what excellency, is there in Arminianism, that we should so much degenerate from all our famous Ancestors, our selves, yea, all the Worthies of our Church and Nation, as now to dote upon it? Its father was an Amorite, its mother an Hittite: corrupt Ambition, proud Nature was the Father, Pelagius the Midwife; Popery the Nurse: Arminius and Socinus, the modern • Advocates, Champions, and Godfathers of this infernal Monster, which Proclaimes professed Hostility to the freedom, sovereignty, certainty, and perpetuity of the grace of God, and breaks the golden chain of Salvation into pieces, which only links us unto Christ. Certainly, Arminianism (whateuer some •• en vainly dream) is but an old condemned He •• sie, raised up from hell of late, by some Jesuits and infernal spirits, to k •• dle a combustion in all Protestant States and Churches; to trample under feet the sovereignty and kingdom of God's grace, and true Religion in all places where they reign or flourish; that so Rome's grand Impostors might possess their throne: to make way and passage for an universal Spanish, Papal Monarchy, which have much enlarged their Dominions by this Church firing, and State-disturbing Heresy: It is but a desperate, and bloody Error, which cuts off all peace, all joy, all comfort, and salvation from the souls of men: especially from broken hearts, and wounded consciences, to which the Arminian Doctrines of Freewill; the Resistability of grace; Conditional, yea mutable Election; with total and final Apostasy from the State of grace, are but so many Lectures of despair. It is a cursed Error, which hath brought a curse, a plague, divisions, tumults, defeatments, shame, consumption, innovations, pressures, and sundry other judgments, on all those Protestant States and Churches where it hath been harboured, which have never thriuen since this contagious, blasting Heresy (which must needs be accompanied, with the very wrath and curse of God, because it nullifies his favor, and disauowes his grace,) hath crept into them. It is but a bridge, an vsher unto Popery, and all Popish Ceremonies, which wind themselves into our Church apace (if Parliament complaints prove true) by their Arminian Agents, as some new erected Altars, Images, Tapers, and late usurped Altar-adorations, with the revolt of sundry Arminians unto Popery, do experimentally testify. O therefore as we tender the peace and safety of our Church and State, the supportation, sovereignty, or advancement of God's Grace: the peace, the comfort, or salvation of our endeared souls: the perpetuity and perennious preservation of our graces: or the prosperity and happiness of our declining Nation: As we desire the subversion of the P • pall, or Spanish Monarchy: the defeatment of all Jesuitical combinations against our Church or State: the overthrow and extirpation of Popery: the continuance, safety, growth, and flourishing of our precious Protestant Religion (which Arminianism and Popery undermine almost as fast at home, as Popish Policies or Spanish Forces do abroad:) let us now at 〈◊〉 lay down these gross Arminian Errors, which have constantly, been brandid, censured, and condemned by all the Evidences, yea Writers of our Church: embracing from, and with our hearts and judgments, these Orthodox sweet, and gracious Anti-Arminian Dogmatical Conclusions here recorded, (wherein our happiness, comfort, and salvation rest,) as the ancient, established, professed and undoubted Doctrines of our Church, (as this whole Antithesis infallibly proves them:) that so our Church and Kingdom, (which being divided against themselves by these distracting opinions, and other civil dissensions, cannot stand,) may once more flourish in these declining, turbulent, and perplexing days, and repossesse that former unity, safety, honor, peace, and glory, which we all desire. We all know in what dangerous and fickle times we live: We see the general desolations, and lamentable ouertures of God's Church abroad; We see Religion sincking, Grace decaying, Popery triumphing, Arminianism spreading, Heresies and new Errors springing, and getting head in every corner: We see Nation rising up against Nation, Kingdom against Kingdom, Church against Church: yea, we may behold one Church, one state, one People, one House, (yea the Members of one and the self same Body,) divided against it self. Look we upon all the Christian World abroad, upon our selves at home, we can behold naught else but the fatal Symptoms, and dismal Characters of an almost inevitable, and near-approaching confusion. O therefore let us now cast Anchor and take Sanctuary in Heaven; Let us draw near and stick fast unto our God: let us cleave inseparably to these Anti-Arminian Conclusions and Doctrines of our Church, which will be our only cordials, our all sufficient contentment, our best security, support, and comfort in the midst of all the ruins, calamities, and miserable perplexities which befall the World: If our Religion be but safe, our Church, our State, our Goods, our Liberties, our very souls and bodies, all we have, are then secure: if we hold but this, all else is sure; if we part with this, then farewell all; let us never expect one halcion happy day or hour more,. Whiles Religion flourished and grew great among us, we were then the head of Nations, the dread, the honor, the mirror, and paradise of the World: since the Tares of Popery and Arminianism have sprung up within our Church, since we have halted and declined in our Faith, we have been the very obloquy, scorn, derision, and tail of all our neighbor nations: Plagues have devoured, Diuisions weakened, discontents, decay of Trade, with sundry other grievances impoverished us, at home: Enemies, tempests, unskillfulness, and over-reaching Policies, consumed, defeated, and dishonored us, by Sea, by Land abroad: All our counsels have been infatuated, our designs frustrated, our hopes dashed, our prayers unanswered, our Parliaments broken up in discontent: the curse and vengeance of God hath clinged close unto us to our great destruction: and for all this, we see, we find, we feel, (and I pray God we may be truly sensible of it ere it be too late,) God's anger is not yet turned away, but his hand is stretched out still against us, because we revolt from him, and our long-professed, and established Religion more and more. Let us therefore now at last remember whence we are fallen, and do our first works; Let us hold fast our first professed Religion, constant to the ende: We were borne, we were baptized, bred, and nursed in it; we have grown up safely, we have prospered happily under it; we have hitherto lived in it, by it: Let us now die in it, yea, with it, for it, if God calls us to it; lest we all suddenly perish, consume, and die eternally without it, because we have thus back-slided from it.

Farewell. The true endeauourer of Religions safety, and our Churches Unity, WILLIAM PRYNNE.

Anti-Arminianism, OR THE CHURCH OF England's old Antithesis to new ARMINIANISME.

IT is the advice and counsel of an Ancient Father, for the suppression of such Haeresies, or upstart Errors, which seek to shroud themselves under the fraudulent covert of wrested and mis-applied Scriptures; to examine them by, to encounter them with, the opinions and unanimous resolutions of those Ancient godly Fathers, who have either died in Christ, or suffered for Christ: that so they may be manifestly discovered without ambiguity, and finally condemned, without revocation or reuiewe. This Fatherly and grave Advice of his, I have made choice to follow, in the discovery, both of the novelty and falseness of those Arminian Tenants, which would willingly harbor themselves, under the roof and Patronage of the Church of England, whose Doctrines they of late praetend they are. The issue which the Arminians, and Anti-Arminians (if I may so style them) are now come to join, and on which they must receive their final doom, is only this: Whether the Arminian or Anti-Arminian Positions, be the received and undoubted Doctrines of the Church of England? The only Evidences, and Grand-Jury-men to try this Issue; are the Articles, Homilies, Common-prayer Book, and the authorized Writings of all the Learned Orthodox Writers of the Church of England, from the beginning of Reformation to this present. If all these suffragate or pass their Verdict for the Arminians, and their erroneous Assertions; let judgment then be openly pronounced for them, we will forth with yield up to them without anymore dispute, both cause and right at once. But if all, or either of these give evidence against them, as in truth they do: If they all yield up a joint unanimous verdict for Anti-Arminians, and their authentic Positions; I hope they shall then receive, not only a speedy and final judgment on their side, which no subsequent Reuiew, nor writ of Error shall henceforth reverse: but likewise a Parliamentary Decree, to establish them in their ancient and long-continued peaceable possession, without disturbance for all future times. For trial of this weighty Issue, which will put a period to our present Controuersies, and stablish peace and unity both in Church and State; I have here Epitomized into this compendious Brief, the several scattered Evidences, and most material Witnesses that the Church of England hath afforded me to this purpose, since her Reformation to this present; all which give punctual testimony, and unanimous sentence against our new Arminian Assertions: discovering them to be, not only novel, and erroneous; but diametrally repugnant to the anciently established, and professed Doctrine of our reformed Church, as the sequel will eftsoone demonstrate.

The Method which I shall observe in the legal deciding of this Issue, is this: First, I shall set down at large, the several grand Charters (to wit, The Articles of the Church of England: The Articles of Lambeth: The Articles of Ireland: The Common Prayer Book: The Homilies Established in our Church: The Chatechisme authorized by King Edward the 6. and Barrets Recantation, ) which entitle the Anti-Arminian Tenants to the Church of England, and the Church of England unto them; and withal disprove the mere pretended title of the Arminian Tenants to our English Church, which never yet gave color or allowance to them. Secondly I shall propound the Anti-Arminian Orthodox Assertions in their order, applying these several Charters to them, as unanswerable evidences; and likewise quoting to them the works and names of all such Orthodox and learned Writers of the Church of England, from the beginning of Reformation to this present, that have hitherto come unto my hands; who give direct and punctual testimony either on their side, or against their opposites, or both; as irrefragable witnesses, to vindicate and prove them, to be the ancient and undoubted; and the contrary Arminian Tenants, the spurious and pretended Doctrines only, of the Church of England.

I shall begin with the first of these; and in that, with the established and allowed Articles of the Church of England.

The Articles of the Church of England, agreed upon in the Conuocation holden at London, in the year 1552. in the reign of Edward the 6. afterwards confirmed and repromulgated in the year of our Lord 1562. in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and since that ratified by King James 1604. and by our gracious Sovereign King Charles, in the year 1628.

The nine Assertions, or Articles of Lambeth composed and agreed upon at Lambeth-House on the 20. day of November, in the year of our Lord, 1595. by John Archbishop of Canterbury, Richard Bishop of London, Richard elect Bishop of Bangor, Doctor Tyndale Dean of Eli, Doctor Whitaker professor of Divinity in Cambridge, and sundry other Reverend and learned Divines there present: with the concurrent approbation of the right Reverend and learned Prelate, Matthew Archbishop of • ork • : for the determining of certain Arminian points of Controuersie that then arose in the University of Cambridge.

1 DEus ab Aeterno Praedestinauit quosdam ad vitam; quosdam Reprobauit ad Mortem.

1 GOD from Eternity hath Praedestinated certain men unto Life; certain men he hath Reprobated unto Death,

2 Causa mouens aut efficiens Praedestinationis ad Vitam, non est praeuisio Fidei, aut perseuerantiae, aut bonorum operum, aut ullius rei quae insit in personis Praedestinatis, sed sola voluntas beneplaciti Dei.

2 The moving, or efficient cause of Predestination unto Life, is not the foresight of Faith, or of perseverance, or of good-works, or of anything that is in the persons Predestinated, but only the good will and pleasure of God

3 Praedestinatorum praefinitus & certus est numerus, qui nec augeri, nec minui possit.

3 There is a pre-determined, and certain number of the Predestinate, which can neither be augmented nor diminished.

4 Qui non sunt Praedestinati ad Salutem, necessario propter peccata sua damnabuntur.

4 Those who are not Predestinated to Salvation, shall be necessarily Damned for their sins.

5 Vera, viva, & iustificans Fides, & Spiritus Dei iustificantis, non extinguitur, non excidit, non euanescit in Electis, aut finaliter, aut totaliter.

5 A true, living, and justifying Faith, and the Spirit of God justifying, is not extinguished, it falleth not away, it vanisheth not away in the Elect, either finally, or totally.

6 Homo vere Fidelis, id est, Fide iustificante praeditus, certus est plerophoria Fider, de Remissione peccatorum suorum, & salute sempiterna sua per Christum.

6 A man truly Faithful, that is, such • one who is endued with a justifying Faith, is certain with the full assurance of Faith, of the Remission of his Sins, and of his Euerlasting Salvation by Christ.

7 Gratia salutaris non tribuitur, non communicator, non conceditur vniuersis hominibus, qua seruari possint, si velint.

7 Sauing grace is not given, is not Communicated, is not granted to all men, by which they may be saved if they will.

8 Nemo potest venire ad Christum, nisi datum ei fuerit, & nisi Pater eum traxerit: & omnes homines non trahuntur a Patre vt veniant ad Filium.

8 No man can come unto Christ, unless it shall be given unto him, and unless the Father shall draw him: and all men are not drawn by the Father, that they may come to the Son.

9 Non est po • itum in arbitrio, aut po • estate vniusc • iusque hominis, servari.

It is not in the Will, or Power of everyone, to be saved.

These Articles of Lambeth how ever some may chance to slight them as the Resolutions of some private m • n: yet they were unanimously composed and approved by both our Right Reverend and Learned Archbishops, Whitgift, and Hu • ton; by the Bishops of London, and Bangor; and by sundry other of our most eminent Divines; and that not rashly or unadvisedly, but upon serious debate and mature deliberation: and being afterwards sent to the University of Cambridge for the allaying of some Arminian Controuersies there raised by master Barret, (whose public Recantation I have here inserted) and abetted by one Peter Baro a Frenchman, Lady Margaret's Professor in that University: they were there received with such an unanimous approbation of the whole University: that those Arminian Tenants were forthwith abandoned; and Baro forced to forsake his place: since whose departure to this present, the Divinity Professors of this our Famous University have constantly adhered to these Conclusions, as the undoubted Doctrine of the Church of England. What respect the Reformed Churches abroad have given to these Articles, or Assertions, Let famous Thysius, who hath twice published them Hardrouici 1613. and quoted the Fathers to them; together with learned Bogerman President of the late famous Synod of Dort, in his 107. and 108. Notes upon the second part of Grotius. Fran • ke •• : 1614. p. 183. 184. testify: who both recite and repute them, as the received and undoubted Doctrine of the Church of England. What approbation they have had with us at home; their unanimous approbation by the University of Cambridge at first; their insertion into the Articles of Ireland, agreed upon by the Archbishops, and Bishops, and the rest of the Clergy of Ireland, in their Conuocation hol • en at Dublin 1615. where all, or most of them, are recited verbatim, as any man may see that will compare them: The mentioning of them in the Conference at Hampton Court: where his Majesty of blessed memory, was moved to insert them into the Book • of Articles; and understanding not what these Assertions of Lambeth were, was informed: that by reason of some Controuersies arising in Cambridge about certain points of Divinity, my Lord's Grace of Canterbury assembled some Divines of especial note to set down their opinions, which they drew into nine Assertions, and so sent them unto the University for the appeasing of those quarrels. Their honorable recital by the late Reverend and learned Bishop of Chichester, Doctor Carlton, in his Examination of Master Montague's Appeale, Edition 2. cap. 2. pag. 8. 9. 10. By learned Doctor Benefield, De Per • euerantia Sanctorum: lib. 1. cap. 15. p. 162. to 167. By Ma •• er Francis Rouse in his Doctrine of King James, p. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mr. John Brown in his Appendix to the Life of Queen Elizabeth, where they are likewise Printe • . By Mr. Thomas Vicars in his Pusillies Grex: Oxo • iae. 1627 p. 31. By Abdias Asheton, in Vita Gulielmi Whitakeri. Cantabrigiae 1599. p. 43. who all repute and deem them, the Orthodox and undoubted Doctrine of the Church of England. All these recited Evidences, I say, do abundantly confirm, the truth, the honor, and Orthodox Authority of these Articles or Assertions; which were never yet impeached by any Orthodox English Divine, as different from o •• 39. Articles, or varying from the received Doctrines of our Church. And therefore (especially since the Articles of Ireland thus approve them) we may safely embrace them, as the undoubted and anciently received Doctrines of our English Church.

Articles of Religion agreed upon by the Archbishops, and Bishops, and the rest of the Clergy of Ireland, in the Conuocation holden at Dublin, in the year of our Lord God. 1615.

11 GOd from all eternity did by his unchangeable counsel ordain whatsoever in time should come to pass. Yet so, as thereby no violence is offered to the wills of the reasonable creatures, and neither the liberty nor the contingency of the second causes is taken away, but established rather.

12 By the same eternal counsel God hath predestinated some unto life, and reprobated some unto death, of both which there is a certain number, known only to God, which can neither be increased nor diminished.

13 Predestination to life, is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby, before the foundations of the world were laid, he hath constantly decreed in his secret counsel to deliver from curse and damnation, those whom he hath chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ unto everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor.

14 The cause moving God to predestinate unto life, is not the foreseeing of faith, or perseverance, or good works, or of anything which is in the person predestinated, but only the good pleasure of God himself. For all things being ordained for the manifestation of his glory, and his glory being to appear both in the works of his Mercy and of his Justice: It seemed good to his heavenly wisedomee to choose out a certain number towards whom he would extend his undeserved mercy, leaving the rest to be spectacles of his justice.

15 Such as are predestinated unto life, be called according unto God's purpose (his spirit working in due season) and through grace they obey the calling, they be justified freely, they be made sons of God by adoption, they be made like the image of his only begotten Son Jesus Christ, they walk religiously in good works, and at length by God's mercy they attain to everlasting felicity. But such as are not predestinated to salvation, shall finally be condemned for their sins.

16 The godly consideration of Predestination and our election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly persons, and such as feel in themselves the working of the spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their minds to high and heavenly things: as well because it doth greatly confirm and establish their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God: and on the contrary side, for curious and carnal persons, lacking the spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God's predestination, is very dangerous.

22 By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death went over all men, for as much as all have sinned.

23 Original sin standeth not in the imitation of Adam (as the Pelagians dream) but is the fault and corruption of the nature of every person that naturally is ingendered and propagated from Adam: whereby it cometh to pass that man is deprived of original righteousness, and by nature is bent unto sin. And therefore in every person borne into the world, it deserveth God's wrath and damnation.

25 The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn, and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God. Wherefore we have no power to do good works, pleasing and acceptable unto God, without the grace of God preventing us, that we may have a good will, and working with us when we have that good will.

26 Works done before the grace of Christ and the inspiration of his spirit are not pleasing unto God, for as much as they spring not of faith in Jesus Christ, neither do they make men meet to receive grace, or (as the School Authors say) deserve grace of congruity: yea rather, for that they are not done in such sort as God hath willed, and commanded them to be done, we doubt not but they are sinful.

31 They are to be condemned, that presume to say, that every man shall be saved by the Law, or Sect which he professeth, so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law, and the light of nature. For holy Scripture doeth set out unto us only the name of Jesus Christ, whereby men must be saved.

32 None can come unto Christ, unless it be given unto him, and unless the Father draw him. And all men are not so drawn by the Father, that they may come unto the Son. Neither is there such a sufficient measure of Grace vouchsafed unto every man, whereby he is enabled to come unto everlasting life.

33 All God's Elect, are in their time inseparably united unto Christ, by the effect all, and vital influence of the holy Ghost, derived from him, as from the head, unto every true member of his mystical body. And being thus made one with Christ, they are truly regenerated, and made partal • ers of him, and a • his benefits.

37 By justifying • aith we understand not only the common belief of the Articles of Christian Religion, and a persuasion of the truth of God's word in general: but also a particular application of the gracious promises of the Gospel, to the comfort of our own Souls; whereby we lay hold on Christ, with all his benefits, having an earnest trust and confidence in God, that he will be merciful unto us for his only Sons sake. So that a true believer may be certain, by the assurance of faith, of the forgiveness of his sins, and of his everlasting salvation by Christ.

38 A true lively justifying faith, and the sanctifying spirit of God is not extinguished, nor vanisheth away in the regenerate, either finally or totally.

THE BOOKE OF Common Prayer.

IN this Book of Common prayer established by Act of Parliament in our Church, there are sundry passages to prove these several Anti-Arminian Positions.

First, that God from eternity hath freely of his own accord, chosen out of mankind a certain select number of men, which can neither be augmented nor diminished; whom he doth effectually call, save, and bring to glory; so that none of them can perish, or fall off from him: and that these only are the true Church.

This Conclusion we shall see confirmed by these several passages, And make thy chosen people joyful. Almighty GOD, which hast knit together the Elect in one Communion and fellowship in the mystical body of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord: grant us grace so to follow thy holy Saints in all virtuous and godly living, &c. Thirdly, in God the holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me and all the Elect people of God: Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of them who depart hence in the Lord, and in whom the souls of them that be elected, after they be delivered from the burden of the flesh, be in joy and felicity, &c. We beseech thee of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of thine Elect, &c. O Almighty and merciful Lord, which givest unto thy Elect people the holy Ghost, as a sure pledge of thy heavenly kingdom: grant unto us this holy spirit, that he may bear witness with our spirits, that we be thy children, and heirs of thy Kingdom, and that by the operation of this spirit, we may kill all carnal lusts, &c. Honor and praise be given unto thee (O Lord God almighty) most dear Father of heaven, for all thy mercies and loving kindness shown unto us; in that it hath pleased thee freely, and of thine own accord to elect and choose us to salvation before the beginning of the world, &c. Almighty God, &c. grant that all thy servants which shall be baptized in this Water, may receive the fullness of thy grace, and ever remain in the number of thy faithful and elect children, &c. See the Collect on good Friday, on the first Sunday after the Epiphany, and one the 2. 15. and 22. Sundays after Trinity, to this purpose.

Secondly, that there is no such free-will, or universal and sufficient grace given unto all men, by which they may convert, repent, believe, and be saved if they will: and that it is God's special preventing grace, which must change men's hearts, and give repentance, faith, and all other graces to them.

This Orthodox position which overturns Free-will and universal grace, the very center and ground work of Arminianism, is abundantly proved by these ensuing Prayers, Wherefore we beseech him to grant us true repentance, and his holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do at this present, &c, O God make clean our hearts within us. O God from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all good works do proceed, &c. That it may please thee to give us an heart to love and dread thee, and diligently to walk after thy Commandments. That it may please thee to give us true repentance, and to endue us with the grace of thy holy Spirit, to amend our lives according to thy holy Word. Though we be tied and bound with the chain of our sins, yet let the pittifulnesse of thy great mercy loose us, &c. Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, &c. O Lord raise up thy power and come among us, and with great might succor us, that whereas by our sins and wickedness we be sore let and hindered, thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily deliver us, &c. See the Collects on the 1. 4. & 5. Sundays after the Epiphany. O GOD create in us new and contrite hearts, &c. Almighty God who doest see that of our selves we have no power to help our selves, keep thou us both outwardly in our bodies, and inwardly in our souls, &c. Almighty God, we humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace preventing us, thou doest put into our hearts good desires: so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect. God the strength of all those that trust in thee, mercifully hear our prayers, and because the weakness of our mortal nature can do no good thing without thee, grant us the help of thy grace, that so we may please thee both in will and deed. Lord of all power and might which art the only author and giver of all good things, grass in our hearts the love of thy name, increase in us true Religion, nourish us with all goodness, and of thy mercy keep us in the same. Grant us O Lord, we beseech thee the spirit to think, and to do always those things as be righteous, that we which cannot be without thee, may by thee be able to do according to thy will, &c. Lord we pray thee that thy grace may always prevent and follow us, and make us continually given to all good works. O God for as much as without thee we cannot please thee, grant that thy mercy may always direct and rule our hearts. See the 2. 6. 13. 15. and 22. Sundaie after Trinity to the same effect. Lord have mercy upon us and incline our hearts to keep this Law. Preuent us, O Lord, in all our doings with thy most gracious favor, and further us with thy continual help, that in all our works begun, continued, and ended in thee, &c. My good child know that thou art not able to do these things of thyself, nor to walk in the Commandments of God, and to serve him without his special grace. Almighty God who makest us both to will and to do the things that be acceptable unto thy Majesty, &c. Turn us O good God, and so shall we be turned.

Thirdly, that Christ Jesus died sufficiently for all mankind, but effectually for none but the Elect, and true believers, who alone are saved by his death.

The sufficiency of Christ's death for all mankind, is expressed in these several places. O God the Son redeemer of the World, have mercy upon us miserable sinners. Above all we must give humble and hearty thanks to God the Father, &c. for the redemption of the world, by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, &c. Almighty God our heavenly Father which of thy tender mercy diddest give thine only Son Jesus Christ to suffer death upon the Cross for our Redemption, who made there (by his own oblation once offered) a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world, &c. O Lamb of God which takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. thou that takest away the sins of the world, receive our prayers. Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me and all mankind. O Savior of the world save us, which by thy Cross and Passion hast redeemed us: All this must be understood only of the sufficiency and merit of Christ's death, not of the efficacy, benefit, and application of it, which belongs to none but to the true Church of Christ, even the Elect and true believers as these passages ensuing will inform us. When thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, thou diddest open the Kingdom of heaven to all believers. We pray thee help thy servants, whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood. O Lord save thy people, and make thy chosen people joyful. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and Redeemed his people. To give knowledge of Salvation to his people, for the remission of their sins. His mercy is on them that fear him throughout all generations. He remembering his mercy hath holpen his servant Israel, &c. Spare thy people whom thou hast redeemed with thy most precious blood. This is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you, and for many for the Remission of sin. Grant that by the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ, & through faith in his blood, we and all thy whole Church may obtain remission of our sins, and all other benefits of his passion. Now the Church the mystical body of Christ, is the blessed company of all faithful and elect people, and none else but they; as the next prayer, the Collect on good Friday, and the places quoted in the first Position, prove. And whereas the Minister in distributing the Bread and wine, saith particularly to every man: take this in remembrance that Christ died for thee: drink this in remembrance that Christ's blood was shed for thee; it cannot imply that Christ died effectually for all men; but the contrary, that he died only thus for the Elect and faithful: because our Church prohibites all such as want true faith and repentance, or live in any gross and known sins, to come to the Sacrament, admitting none but true and faithful penitents to it: so that the Minister and our Church do always look upon all Communicants, as the elect and chosen Saints of God, endued with true faith and repentance, and so they may well apply (at leastwise in the judgment of Charity) the efficacy and merits of Christ's death unto them. I will conclude this point with the passage of A Prayer necessary for all men. Jesus Christ thy only Son hath perfectly fulfilled thy Law, to justify all men that believe and trust in him. And thus much for our Common Prayer Book.

Certain Homilies appointed to be read in Churches, in the time of the late Queen ELIZABETH of famous memory. And since thought fit to be reprinted by Authority from the KINGS most Excellent Majesty.

SAint Paul in many places painteth us out in our colors, calling us the children of the wrath of God, when we be borne: saying also that we cannot think a good thought of our selves, much less can we say well, or do well of our selves, &c. Our Savior Christ saith, There is none good but GOD: and that we can do nothing that is good without him, nor no man can come to the Father but by him, &c.

For of our selves we are crabtrees, that can bring forth no Apples. We be of our selves of such earth, as can bring forth but weeds, nettles, brambles, briers, cockle, and darnel. We have neither Faith, Charity, Hope, Patience, Chastity, nor anything else that good is, but of God, and therefore these virtues be called there the fruits of the holy Ghost, and not the fruits of man. Let us therefore acknowledge our selves before God (as we be indeed) miserable and wretched sinners.

Of our selves, and by our selves, we have no goodness, help, nor salvation, but contrariwise sin, damnation, and death everlasting: which if we deeply weigh and consider, we shall the better understand the great mercy of God, and how our salvation cometh only by Christ. We are all become unclean, but we all are not able to cleanse our selves, nor to make one another of us clean. We are by nature the Children of God's wrath, but we are not able to make our selves the children and inheritors of God's glory. We are sheep that run astray, but we cannot of our own power come again to the sheepfold, so great is our imperfection and weakness. In our selves therefore may we not glory, which (of our selves) are nothing but sinful. To GOD therefore must we flee, or else shall we never find peace, rest and quietness of Conscience in our hearts. For he is the Father of mercies, and God of all consolation. He is the Lord, with whom is plenteous redemption: He is the God who of his own mercy saveth us, and setteth out his charity and exceeding love towards us, in that of his own voluntary goodness, when we were perished, he saved us, and provided an everlasting Kingdom for us. And all these heavenly treasures are given us, not for our own deserts, merits, or good deeds, (which of our selves we have none) but of his mere mercy freely. He is the high and everlasting Priest, which hath offered himself once for all upon the altar of the Cross, and with that one oblation hath made perfect for evermore them that are sanctified. He is the alone mediator between GOD and man, which paid our ransom to GOD with his own blood, and with that hath he cleansed us all from sin. He is the Physician which healeth all our diseases; He is that Savior which saveth his people from all their sins: he is that flowing and most plenteous fountain, of whose fullness all we have received.

A Sermon of the salvation of mankind, by only Christ our Savior from sin and death everlasting.

(All the world being wrapped in sin by breaking of the Law) GOD sent his only son our Savior Christ into this world, to fulfill the Law for us, and by shedding of his most precious blood, to make a sacrifice and satisfaction, or (as it may be called) amends to his Father for our sins, to asswage his wrath and indignation conceived against us for the same. But our justification doeth come freely by the mere mercy of GOD, and of so great and free mercy, that whereas all the world was not able of their selves to pay any part towards their ransom, it pleased our heavenly Father of his infinite mercy, without any our desert or deserving, to prepare for us the most precious jewels of Christ's body and blood, whereby our ransom might be fully paid, the law fulfilled, and his justice fully satisfied. So that Christ is now the righteousness of all them that truly do believe in him. He for them paid their ransom by his death. He for them fulfilled the Law in his life. So that now in him, and by him, every true Christian man may be called a fulfiller of the Law, forasmuch as that which their infirmity lacked, Christ's justice hath supplied.

For the very sure and lively Christian faith is not only to believe all things of GOD, which are contained in holy Scripture, but also is an earnest trust, and confidence in God, that he doeth regard us, and that he is careful over us, as the Father is over the Child whom he doeth love, and that he will be merciful unto us for his only sons sake, and that we have our Savior Christ our perpetual advocate, and Priest, in whose only merits, oblation and suffering, we do trust that our offenses be continually washed and purged, whensoever we (repenting truly) do return to him, with our whole heart, steadfastly determining with our selves, through his grace, to obey and serve him in keeping his Commandments, and never turn back again to sin. Such is the true faith, that the Scripture doeth so much commend, the which when it seeth and con • idereth what GOD hath done for us, is also moved through continual assistance of the Spirit of GOD, to serve and please him, to keep his favor, to fear his displeasure, to continue his obedient children, showing thankfulness again by obserui • g or keeping his commandments, and that freely, for true love chiefly, and not for dread of punishment, or love of temporal reward, considering how clearly, without deservings we have received his mercy and pardon freely.

For as the holy Ghost doeth teach us to trust in GOD, and to call upon him as our Father: so did he teach them to say, as it is written, Thou Lord art our Father and Redeemer, and thy Name is without beginning and everlasting. GOD gave them then grace to be his children, as he doth us now. It is evident, that the true, lively, and Christian faith, is no dead, vain, or unfruitful thing, but thing of a perfect virtue, of wonderful operation or working, and strength, bringing forth all good motions and good works, Of faith, he saith, He that believeth in the Son, hath everlasting life, but he that believeth not in the Son, shall not see that life, but the wrath of GOD remaineth upon him. And the same he confirmeth with a double oath, saying, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth in me, hath everlasting life. Now forasmuch as he that believeth in Christ, hath everlasting life: it must needs consequently follow, that he that hath this faith, must have also good works, and be studious to observe God's commandments obediently. For to them that have evil works, and lead their life in disobedience, and transgression or breaking of God's commandments, without repentance • pertaineth not everlasting life, but everlasting death?

Therefore let us set our whole faith and trust in GOD, and neither the world, the devil, nor all the power of them shall prevail against us. Let us by such virtues as ought to spring out of faith, show our election to be sure and stable, as S. Peter teacheth, Endeuour yourselves to make your calling and election certain by good works. If you feel and perceive such a faith in you, rejoice in it: and be diligent to maintain it, and keep it still in you, let it be daily increasing, and more and more by well working, and so shall you be sure that you shall please GOD by this faith, and at the length (as other faithful men have done before) so shall you (when his will is) come to him, and receive the end and final reward of your faith (as. S. Peter nameth it) the salvation of our souls: But (everlasting • thanks be to Almighty GOD forever) there is never a one of all these causes, no nor yet them altogether, that can make a true Christian man afraid to die (who is the very member of Christ, the Temple of the holy Ghost, the Son of God, and the very inheritor of the everlasting kingdom of heaven:) but plainly contrary, he concieueth great and many causes undoubtedly grounded upon the infallible and everlasting truth of the word of GOD which moveth him not only to put away the fear of bodily death, but also for the manifold benefits and singular commodities which ensue unto every faithful person by reason of the same, to wish, desire, and long heartily for it. For death shall be to him no death at all, but a very deliverance from death, from all pains, cares, and sorrows, miseries, and wretchedness of this world, and the very entry into rest. Why then shall we f • ere to die, considering the manifold and comfortable promises of the Gospel, and of holy Scriptures? GOD the Father hath given us everlasting life (saith. S. John) and this life is in his Son. He that hath Son, hath life, and he that hath not the Son, hath not life. And this I write (saith S. John) to you that believe in the Name of the Son of GOD, that you may know that you have everlasting life, and that you do believe upon the Name of the Son of GOD. And our Savior Christ saith, He that believeth in me hath life everlasting, and I will raise him from death to life at the last day.

All those therefore have great cause to be full of joy that be joined to Christ with true Faith, steadfast Hope, and perfect Charity, and not to fear death nor everlasting damnation. For death cannot deprive them of Jesus Christ, nor any sin can condemn them that are graffed surely in him, which is their only joy, treasure and life. Let us repent our sins, amend our lives, trust in his mercy and satisfaction, and death can neither take him from us, nor us from him.

For it is of the free grace and mercy of GOD, by the mediation of the blood of his Son Jesus Christ, without merit or deserving on our part, that our sins are forgiven us; that we are reconciled and brought again into his favor, and are made heirs of his heavenly kingdom. Grace (saith S. Augustine) belonging to GOD, who doth call us, and then hath he good works, whosoever received grace: Good works then bring not forth grace, but are brought forth by grace. The wheel (saith he) turneth round, not to the end that it may be made round: but because it is first made round, therefore it turneth round. So, no man doth good works, to receive grace by his good works: but because he • hath first received grace, therefore consequently he doth good works.

For the Scripture doeth acknowledge but two places after this life. The one proper to the elect and blessed of GOD; the other to the reprobate and damned souls. The only Purgatory wherein we must trust to be saved, is the death and blood of Christ, which if we apprehend with a true and steadfast faith, it purgeth and cleanseth us from all our sins, even as well as if he were now hanging upon the Cross. The blood of Christ saith Saint John, hath cleansed us from all sin. The blood of Christ, saith Saint Paul, hath purged our consciences from dead works, to serve the living GOD, Also in another place he saith, We be sanctified and made holy by the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ done once for all. Yea he addeth more, saying, With the one oblation of his blessed body and precious blood, he hath made perfect forever and ever all them that are sanctified.

Noah in his drunkenness offended GOD highly. Lot lying with his daughters, committed horrible incest. We ought then to learn by them this profitable lesson, that if so godly men as they were, which otherwise felt inwarldly GOD sholy Spirit inflaming in their hearts, with the fear and love of GOD, could not by their own strength keep themselves from committing horrible sin, but did so grievously fall, that without GOD'S great mercy they had perished everlastingly: How much more ought we then, miserable wretches, which have no feeling of GOD within us at all, continually to fear, not only that we may fall as they did, but also be overcome and drowned in sin, which they were not? though through infirmity w • e chance at any time to fall, yet we may by hearty repentance, and true faith, speedily rise again, and not sleep and continue in sin, as the wicked doeth All men have not faith. This therefore shall not satisfy and content all men's minds: but as some are carnal, so they will still continue, and abuse the Scriptures carnally, to their greater damnation. The vnl • arned and unstable (saith Saint Peter) pervert the holy Scriptures to their own destruction. Jesus Christ (as S. Paul saith) is to the Jews an offense, to the Gentiles foolishness: But to God's children, as well of the Jews as of the Gentiles he is the power and wisdom of GOD. The holy man Simeon saith, that he is set forth for the fall and rising again of many in Israel. As Christ Jesus is a fall to the reprobate, which yet perish through their own default: so is his word, yea the whole book of GOD, a cause of damnation unto them, through their incredulity. And as he is a rising up to none other then those which are GOD'S children by adoption: so is his word, yea the whole Scripture, the power of GOD to salvation to them only that do believe it. Christ himself, the Prophets before him, the Apostles after him, all the true Ministers of GOD'S holy word, yea every word in GOD'S Book, is unto the reprobate, the favor of death unto death,

Christ Jesus, the Prophets, the Apostles, and all the true Ministers of his word, yea every jot and tittle in the holy Scripture, have been, is, and shall be for evermore, the favor of life unto eternal life, unto all those whose hearts GOD hath purified by true faith. GOD of his mercy and special favor towards them whom he hath appointed to everlasting salvation, hath so offered his grace especially, and they have so received it fruitfully, that although by reason of their sinful living outwardly, they seemed before to have been the children of wrath and perdition, yet now the Spirit of GOD mightily working in them, unto obedience to GOD'S will and commandments, they declare by their outward deeds and life, in the showing of mercy, and charity (which cannot come but of the Spirit of GOD, and his especial grace that they are the undoubted children of GOD, appointed to everlasting life. And so as by their wickedness and ungodly living, they shown themselves according to the judgment of men, which follow the outward appearance, to be reprobates and castaways: So now by their obedience unto GOD'S holy will, and by their mercifulness and tender pity (wherein they show themselves to be like unto GOD, who is the fountain and spring of all mercy) they declare openly and manifestly unto the sight of men, that they are the sons of GOD, and elect of him unto salvation. For as the good fruit is not the cause that the tree is good, but the tree must first be good before it can bring forth good fruit: so the good deeds of men are not the cause that maketh men good, but he is first made good, by the spirit and grace of GOD that effectually worketh in him, and afterward he bringeth forth good fruits.

The reasonable and godly, as they most certainly know and persuade themselves, that all goodness, all bounty, all mercy, all benefits, all forgiveness of sins, and whatsoever can be named good and profitable, either for the body or for the soul, do come only of GOD'S mercy and mere favor, and not of themselves: Moreover, he came in flesh and in the self same flesh ascended into heaven, to declare and testify unto us, that all faithful people which steadfastly believe in him, shall likewise come unto the same mansion place, whereunto he being our chief Captain is gone before. Christ openly declared his obedience to his Father, which (as Saint Paul writeth) was obedient even to the very death, the death of the Cross. And this he did for us all that believe in him. So pleasant was this facrifice and oblation of his Sons death, which he so obediently and innocently suffered, that we should take it for the only and full amends for all the sins of the world. And such favor did he purchase by his death, of his heavenly Father for us, that for the merit thereof (if we be true Christians indeed, and not in word only) we be now fully in GOD'S grace again, and clearly discharged from our sin. The only mean and instrument of salvation required of our parts, is faith, that is to say a sure trust and confidence in the mercies of God: whereby we persuade our selves, that God, hath hath, and will forgive our sins, that he hath accepted us again into his favor, that he hath released us from the bonds of damnation, and received us again into the number of his elect people, not for our merits or deserts, but only and solely for the merits of Christ's death and passion. Christ died for our sins, and rose again for our justification: Why may not we, that be his members by true faith, rejoice and boldly say with the Prophet Osee, and the Apostle Paul, Where is thy dart, O death? where is thy victory, O hell? Thanks be unto God, say they, which hath given us the victory by our Lord Christ Jesus.

Apply yourselves (good friends) to live in Christ, that Christ may still live in you, whose favor and assistance if ye have, then have ye everlasting life already within you, then can nothing hurt you. Whatsoever is hitherto done and committed. It is the holy Ghost, and no other thing, that doeth quicken the minds of men, stirring up good and godly motions in their hearts, which are agreeable to the will and commandment of God, such as otherwise of their own crooked and perverse nature they should never have. That which is borne of the Spirit, is Spirit. As who should say: Man of his own nature is fleshly and carnal, corrupt and naught, sinful and disobedient to God, without any spark of goodness in him, without any virtuous or godly motion, only given to evil thoughts and wicked deeds. As for the works of the Spirit, the fruits of Faith, charitable and godly motions, if he have any at all in him, they proceed only of the holy Ghost, who is the only worker of our Sanctification, and maketh us new men in Christ Jesus.

His power and wisdom, compelleth us to take him for God omnipotent, invisible, having rule in heaven & earth, having all things in his subjection, and will have none in counsel with him, nor any to ask the reason of his doing. For he may do what liketh him, and none can resist him. For he worketh all things in his secret judgment to his own pleasure, yea even the wicked to damnation saith Solomon. All spiritual gifts and graces come specially from God: he sp •• ed not from any pain and travail that might do us good. To this our Saniour and Mediator, hath God the Father given the power of heaven and earth, and the whole jurisdiction and authority, to distribute his goods and gifts committed to him: for so writeth the Apostle. To everyone of us is grace given, according to the measure of Christ's giving. This knowledge and feeling is not in our self, by our self it is not possible to come by it, a great pity it were that we should lose so profitable knowledge. Let us therefore meekly call upon that bountiful spirit the holy Ghost, which proceedeth from our Father of mercy, and from our Mediator Christ, that he would assist us, and inspire us with his presence, that in him we may be able to hear the goodness of God declared unto us to our salvation. For without his lively and secret inspiration, can we not once so much as speak the Name of our Mediator, as Saint Paul plainly testifieth: No man can once name our Lord Jesus Christ, but in the holy Ghost. Much less should we be able to believe and know these great mysteries that be opened to us by Christ. Saint Paul saith, that no man can know what is of God, but the Spirit of God. As for us (saith he) we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God, for this purpose: that in that holy spirit we might know the things that be given us by Christ. The wise man saith, that in the power and virtue of the holy Ghost, resteth all wisdom, and all ability to know God, and to please him.

We must beware and take heed, that we do in no wise think in our hearts, imagine, or believe that we are able to repent aright, or to turn effectually unto the Lord by our own might and strength. For this must be verified in all men. Without me ye can do nothing. Again, Of our selves we are not able as much as to think a good thought. And in another place, It is God that worketh in us both the will and the deed. For this cause, although Hieremie had said before, If thou return, O Israel, return unto me, saith the Lord: Yet afterwards he saith, Turn thou me, O Lord, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord my God. And therefore that holy writer and ancient father Ambrose doeth plainly affirm, that the turning of the heart unto God, is of God, as the Lord himself doeth testify by his Prophet, saying, And I will give thee an heart to know me, that I am the Lord, and they shall be my people, and I will be their God, for they shall return unto me with their whole heart.

Both the Priesthood and the Law being changed we ought to acknowledge none other Priest for deliverance from our sins, but our Savior Jesus Christ, who being sovereign Bishoppe, doeth with the Sacrifice of his Body and Blood, offered once forever upon the Altar of the Cross, most effectually cleanse the spiritual leprosy, and wash away the sins of all those that with true confession of the same do flee unto him.

These several passages quoted out of our Homilies do aboundanty testify: that there is an eternal and immutable Predestination of certain men unto eternal life, out of mere grace and mercy; and likewise a praetermission or reprobation of others to eternal death, out of God's mere pleasure. That there is no Free-will, or sufficient grace communicated unto all men, whereby they may convert, and save themselves if they will. And that man without the special assistance of God's grace and Spirit, is so weak and impotent, that he can neither do nor think anything that is good, or prepare his heart to seek for grace: That Christ Jesus hath died sufficiently for all men, but effectually for none but the Elect, and such who are enabled through faith to apply his merits to their souls. That God's grace and Spirit do always work effectually in the hearts of his Elect, in the act of their conversion, which they can never finally nor totally resist. And that the Elect and truly regenerate can neither fall finally nor totally from the state of grace which is firm and stable. If any man desire to know more of man's imbecility, and misery since the fall, which is such; that he can neither will nor do anything that is good, without God's special preventing and assisting grace: (a point which overthrows the whole Fabric of Arminianism, which is founded upon man's Free-will.) Let him read the first and second part of the Homily of the Misery of man. The Homilies of Christ's Natiuitie, Passion, and Resurrection: The first Homily on Whitsonday: The first, second, and third part of the Homily on Rogation week: And the first part of the Homily of Repentance, where this point is so copiously handled, and abundantly confirmed, that it needs no more dispute. He that would further satisfy himself in the freeness of our Election, Vocation, Justification, Sanctification, and Salvation, out of mere grace and mercy, without any desire, merits, will, or works of our own, or anything foreseen in us; Let him read the foresaid Homilies: together with the first, second, and third parts of the Homilies of Salvation and Faith: He that would be further and more fully instructed in the point of the sufficiency, value, worth, and merit of Christ's death, which was able and sufficient of it self to redeem, not some, but all mankind, though the effect and application of it belong not to all, but only to the Elect who alone have Faith for to apply it: let him read all these forementioned Homilies. For the point of Perseverance, if any desire more copious evidences for to clear it: let him peruse the second part of those Homilies, Pag. 148. 209. 261. 262. 263. and there he shall find it proved: That the Spirit of God doth always dwell in the hearts of the Regenerate: (and that David, Solomon, Noah, Lot, and Peter though they fell into gross and 〈◊〉 sin •• , yet they did not fall finally, nor totally from the state of Grace. The cavils which have been raised against this point upon some passages in the Homilies, of falling from God. I myself, with others, have formerly answered them in other books; I therefore spare for to repeat them, since the now recited passages are sufficient for to clear this point, & to evidence it to the world: that the Arminian Tenants are manifestly oppugned, yea, condemned; not warranted by our Homilies.

These Homilies were most of them penned and composed by the Learned Archbishop of Canterbury, Doctor Cranmer afterwards a Martyr.

A short Catechism set forth by King Edward the 6. his Authority, for all Schoolmasters to teach, Printed at London in Latin per Reginaldum Woolfium 1553. and the same year in English, Cum Priuilegio, by John Day, out of which I have transcribed it verbatim, from Folio 37. to 41.

Scholar. AFter that the Lord God had made the Heaven and Earth, he determined to have for himself a most beautiful Kingdom, and holy Commonwealth. The Apostles and Ancient Fathers that wrote in Greek, called it Ecclesia, in English a Congregation or Assembly; into the which he hath admitted an infinite number of men, that should be subject to one King, as their Sovereign and only Head: him we call Christ, which is as much as to say Anointed, &c. To the furnishing of this Common-weal belong all they, as many as do truly fear, honor, and call upon God, daily applying their minds to holy and godly living, and all those that putting all their hope and trust in him do assuredly look for the bliss of everlasting life. But as many as are in this Faith steadfast, were fore-chosen, Praedestinat, and appointed to everlasting life before the world was made. Witness hereof, they have within their hearts the spirit of Christ, the Author, earnest, and vnfailable pledge of their faith. Which faith only is able to perceive the mysteries of God: only brings peace unto the heart: only taketh hold on the righteousness that is in Christ Jesus.

Master. Doth then the Spirit alone, and faith, (sleep we never so securely, or stand we never so rechlesse or slothful) so work all things for us, as without any help of our own to carry us idle up heaven?

Schol: I use Master (as you have taught me) to make a difference between the cause and the effect. The first principal and most proper cause of our Justification and Salvation, is the goodness and love of God, whereby he chose us for his before he made the world. After that, God granteth us to be called by the Preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, when the spirit of the Lord is poured into us: by whose garding and governance we be led to settle our trust in God, and hope for the performance of his promise. With this choice is joined as companion, the mortifying of the old man, that is of our affection and last. From the same spirit also cometh our Sanctification, the love of God, and of our neighbor, justice, and uprightness of life. Finally, to say all in sum, Whateuer is in us, or may be done of us, honest, pure, true, and good, that altogether springeth out of this most pleasant Rock, from this most plentiful Fountain, the goodness, love, choice, and unchangeable purpose of God, he is the cause, the rest are the fruits, and effects. Yet are also the goodness, choice, and spirit of God, and Christ himself, causes, conjoined and coupled each with other: which may be reckoned among the principal causes of salvation. As oft therefore as we use to say, that we are made righteous and saved by saith only; it is meant thereby, that faith, or rather trust alone, doth lay hand upon, understand, and perceive our righteous making to be given us of God freely; that is to say, by no deserts of our own, but by the free grace of the Almighty Father. Moreover Faith doth ingender in us love of our neighbor, and such works as God is pleased withal. For if it be a lively and true faith, quickened by the holy Ghost, she is the mother of all good saying and doing. By this short tale it is evident, whence and by what means we attain to be righteous. For not by the worthiness of our deservings, were we either heretofore chosen, or long ago saved, but by the only mercy of God, and pure grace of Christ our Lord: whereby we were in him made to do these good works, that God had appointed for us to walk in. And although good works cannot deserve to make us righteous before God, yet do they so clean unto Faith, that neither Faith can be found without them, nor good Works be anywhere found without Faith. And Fol. 68. Immortality and blessed life God hath provided for his chosen before the foundations of the World were laid.

This Catechism was published by King Edward the 6. his Authority, in the year 1553. being the next year after the composure and publishing of the Articles of our Church, which were first of all concluded upon, in the year 1552. being only reui • ed, not framed or new composed in the year 1562. From whence I collect, that this Catechism is fully agreeable to the true sense and meaning of our Articles, and may well be taken, as a Comment or Explanation on our 16. and 17. Articles: so that whatsoever is affirmed in this Catechism, is likewise affirmed by those Articles. And if so, then it is more then evident, that our Articles do point-blank oppugn the Arminian mutability of Predestination: Election from Faith, or Works, or anything else foreseen in us, Free-will, and universal or sufficient grace, the total and final resisting of the work of grace, and Apostasy from the state of grace; together with the truth of grace in reprobates, or castaways: all which are evidently refuted and condemned by this Catechism as the figured passages will demonstrate.

Certain questions and answers touching the doctrine of Predestination: Printed by ROBERT BARKER Anno 1607. and bound up, and sold with our English Bibles.

Question. WHy do men so much vary in matters of Religion?

Answer. Because all have not the like measure of knowledge, neither do all believe the Gospel of Christ.

Qu. What is the reason thereof?

An. Because they only believe the Gospel and doctrine of Christ, which are ordained unto eternal life.

Qu. Are not all ordained to eternal life?

An. Some are vessels of wrath ordained unto destruction, as others are vessels of mercy prepared to glory.

Qu. How standeth it with God's Justice, that some are appointed to damnation?

An. Very well: because all men have in themselves sin, which deserveth no less: and therefore the mercy of God is wonderful in that he vouchsafeth to save some of that sinful race, and to bring them to the knowledge of the truth.

Qu. If God's ordinance and determination must of necessity take effect, then what need any man to care? for he that liveth well, must needs be damned, if he be thereunto ordained: and he that liveth ill must needs be saved, if he be thereunto appointed.

Ans. Not so: for it is not possible, that either the elect should always be without care to do well, or that the reprobate should have any will thereunto. For to have either good will or good work, is a testimony of the Spirit of God, which is given to the Elect only, whereby faith is so wrought in them, that being graft into Christ, they grow in holiness to that glory, whereunto they are appointed. Neither are they so vain as once to think that they may do as they list themselves, because they are predestinate unto salvation: but rather they endeavor to walk in such good works as God in Christ Jesus hath ordained them unto, and prepared for them to be occupied in, to their own comfort, stay and assurance, and to his glory.

Qu. But how shall I know myself to be one of those whom God hath ordained to life eternal.

Ans. By the motions of spiritual life, which belongeth only to the children of God: by the which that life is perceived, even as the life of this body is discerned by the sense and motions thereof.

Qu. What mean you by the motions of spiritual life?

Ans. I mean remorse of conscience, joined with the loathing of sin, and love of righteousness: the hand of Faith reaching unto life eternal in Christ, the Conscience comforted in distress, and raised up to confidence in God by the work of his Spirit: a thankful remembrance of God's benefits received, and the using of all adversities as occasion of amendment sent from GOD.

Qu. Cannot such perish as at some time or other feel these motions within themselves?

Ans. It is not possible that they should: for as God's purpose is not changeable, so he repenteth not of the gifts and graces of his adoption: neither doeth he cast off those whom he hath once received.

Qu. Why then should we pray by the example of David, that he cast us not from his Face, and that he take not his holy Spirit from us?

Ans. In so praying, we make protestation of the weakness of flesh, which moveth us to doubt: yet should not we have courage to ask, if we were not assured that God will give according to his purpose and promise, that which we require.

Qu. Do the Children of God feel the motions aforesaid always alike?

Ans. No truly: for God sometime to prove his, seemeth to leave them in such sort, that the flesh ouermatcheth the Spirit, whereof ariseth trouble of conscience for the time: yet the spirit of adoption is never taken from them, that have once received it: else might they perish. But as in many diseases of the body, the powers of the bodily life are letted: So in some assaults the motions of spiritual life are not perceived, because they lie hidden in our manifold infirmities, as the fire covered with ashes. Yet as after sickness cometh health, and after clouds the Sun shi • eth clear: so the powers of spiritual life will more or less be felt and percieued in the children of God.

Qu. What if I never feel these motions in myself, shall I despair, and think myself a castaway?

An. God forbid: for God calleth his, at what time he seeth good: and the instruments whereby he usually calleth, have not the like effect at all times: yet is it not good to neglect the means whereby God hath determined to work the Salvation of his. For as wax is not melted without heat, nor clay hardened but by means thereof; so God useth means both to draw those unto himself, whom he hath appointed unto Salvation, and also to bewray the wickedness of them whom he justly condemneth.

Qu. By what means useth God to draw men to himself, that they may be saved?

Ans. By the preaching of his word, and the ministering of his Sacraments thereunto annexed, &c.

These Questions and Answers concerning Predestination, which are full and punctual to our purpose, were always Printed at the ende of the old Testament, and bound up and sold Cum Priuilegio, with this Authorized Translation of the Bible, till the year 1614. since which no Bibles of this sort were printed. We may therefore use it as a pregnant testimony, and punctual declaration of the Doctrine of our Church, in the particular points of Controuersie hereafter mentioned.

The Synod of Dort held in the years of our Lord, 1618. 1619. at Dort in the Netherlands.

I mean not to recite the several Articles and Conclusions of this late famous Synod, convented by the pious care and providence of our late Sovereign King James, at which the eminentest Protestant Divines of most Reformed Churches were assembled, and among the rest sieve selected English Divines; to wit, Dr. Carlton, late Bishop of Chichester; Dr. Dauenat, now Bishop of Salisbury; Dr. Belcanquell, Dean of Rochester; Dr. Samuel Ward, public Divinity Professor in the University of Cambridge; and Doctor Thomas Goad; who not only as Private men, but as representative persons of the Church of England, subscribed the several Articles and Conclusions there resolved: witness Theologorum magnae Britanniae Sententia, in the Acts of the Synod at large: The little English Synod of Dort, and Dr. Ward his Suffragium Britannorum, to which I shall refer you with a bare quotation, they being obvious to men's hands, and tedious to transcribe.

A COPPYE OF A RECANTATION OF certain Errors, raked out of the dunghill of Popery, and Pelagianism, publicly made by Master Barret of Kayes College in Cambridge the tenth day of May, in this present year of our Lord, 1595. in the University Church, called Saint Mary's in Cambridge: which Errors he (together with Master Ha • rsnet of Penbrooke Hall) did rashly hold, and maintain: Translated • ut of Latin into English.

Anno. 37. Elizabeth.

P Reaching in Latin not long since in the University Church, (Right Worshipful,) many things slipped from me, both falsely, and rashly spoken, whereby I understand the minds of many have been grieved; to the end therefore that I may satisfy the Church and the Truth which I have publicly hurt, I do make this public Confession, both repeating, and revoking my Errors.

[ 1] First, I said, that no man in this transitory World, is so strongly underpropped, at least by the certainty of Faith, that is, unless (as I afterwards expounded it,) by Revelation, that he ought to be assured of his own Salvation. But now I protest before God, and acknowledge in my Conscience, that they which are justified by Faith, have peace towards God, that is, have reconciliation with God, and do stand in that Grace by Faith: therefore that they ought to be certain, and assured of their own Salvation, even by the certainty of Faith it self.

Secondly, I affirmed that the Faith of Peter could not [ 2] fail, but that other men's Faith may: for (as I then said) our Lord prayed not for the Faith of every particular man. But now being of a better, and more sound Judgment: (according to that which Christ teacheth in plain words, John 17. 20. I pray not for these alone, (that is, the Apostles,) but for them also which shall believe in me, through their word. ) I acknowledge that Christ did pray for the Faith of every particular Believer: and that by the virtue of that Prayer of Christ, every true Believer is so stayed up that his Faith cannot fail.

Thirdly, touching perseverance unto the end, I said [ 3] that that certainty concerning the time to come, is proud, forasmuch, as it is in his own nature contingent, of what kind the perseverance of every man is: neither did I affirm it to be proud only, but to be most wicked. But now I freely protest, that the true, and justifying Faith (whereby the Faithful are most nearly united unto Christ,) is so firm, as also for the time to come so certain, that it can never be rooted up out of the minds of the Faithful, by any temptations of the Flesh, the World, or the Devil himself: So that he which once hath this Faith, shall ever have it: for by the benefit of that justifying Faith, Christ dwelleth in us, and we in Christ: therefore it cannot but be both increased, (Christ growing in us daily,) as also preseuere unto the end, because God doeth give constancy.

Fourthly, I affirmed that there was no distinction in [ 4] Faith, but in the persons believing. In which I confess that I did Err: Now I freely acknowledge, that temporary Faith, (which as Bernard witnesseth, is therefore feigned, because it is temporary,) is distinguished, and differeth from that saving Faith, whereby sinners apprehending Christ, are justified before God forever; not in measure, and degrees, but in the very thing it self. Moreover I add, that James doth make mention of a dead Faith, and Paul of a Faith that worketh by love.

[ 5] Fifthly, I added, that forgiveness of sins is an Article of Faith, but not particular, neither belonging to this man, nor to that man: that is, (as I expounded it,) that no true Faithful man, either can, or ought, certainly to believe that his sins are forgiven. But now I am of another mind, and do freely confess, that every true Faithful man is bound by this Article of Faith, (to wit, I believe the forgiveness of sins,) certainly to believe that his own particular sins are freely forgiven him: neither doeth it follow hereupon, that that Petition of the Lord's prayer (to wit, forgive us our Trespasses, ) is needless; for in that Petition, we ask not only the guist, but also the increase of Faith.

[ 6] Sixthly, these words escaped me in my Sermon, viz. As for those that are not saved, I do most strongly believe, and do freely protest that I am so persuaded against Calvin, Peter Martyr, and the rest, that sin is the true, proper, and first cause of Reprobation. But now being better instructed; I say that the Reprobation of the wicked, is from Euerlasting, and that that saying of Augustine to Simplician is most true, viz. If sin were the cause of Reprobation, then no man should be elected, because God doeth foreknow all men to be de • iled with it. And (that I may speak freely,) I am of the sam • mind; and do believe concerning the Doctrine of Election, and Reprobation, as the Church of England believeth, and teacheth in the book of the Articles of Faith in the Article of Predestination.

Last of all, I uttered these words rashly against Calvin [ 7] a man that hath very well deserved of the Church of God; to wit, that he durst presume to lift up himself above the High, and Almighty God. By which words I confess that I have done great injury to that most learned, and right godly man: and I do most humbly beseech you all, to pardon this my rashness: as also in that I have uttered many bitter words against Peter Martyr, Theodore Beza, Jerome Zanchius, Francis Junius, and the rest of the same Religion, being the Lights and Ornaments of our Church: calling them by the odious names of Calvinists, and other slanderous terms; branding them with a most grievous mark of reproach: whom because our Church doth worthyly reverence, it was not meet, that I should take away their good name from them, or any way impair their credit, or d • hort others of our Cuntrey-men, from reading their most learned works. I am therefore very sorry, and grieved for this most grievous offense, which I have publicly given to this most famous Vniuersity, which is the Temple of true Religion, and sacred receptacle of Piety; And I do promise, that (by God's help,) I will never hereafter offend in the like sort: and I do earnestly beseech you (Right worshipful,) and all others to whom I have given this offense, either in the former Articles, or in any part of my said Sermon, that you would of your courtesy pardon me, upon this my reap • tance.

That the authority, and consequence of this precedent Recantation may be more fully manifested; I will briefly relate, both the occasion, and the carriage of it. One Master Barret of Kayes College, Preaching a Concio ad Clerum in Saint Mary's Church in Cambridge, on the 29. day of April 1595. made bold to vent these then Pelagian, and Popish, but now both Popish, and Arminian Tenants, which are here recanted: which gave such general offense unto all the Auditors, that on the 5. of May next following, about nine of the clock in the fore-noon, he was convented for the publishing of these Erronious Tenants, and his reviling of Calvin, Beza, Peter Martyr, Luther, Junius, Zanchius and others, before all the Heads of the University of Cambridge: to wit, Master Doctor Some, Doctor Duport, Doctor Goad, Doctor Tyndale, Doctor Whitaker, Doctor Barwell, Doctor Iegon, Doctor Preston, Master Chaderton, and Master Clayton, Thomas Smith, the public Notary of the University being there present; who appointed him to appear again before them, at three of the clock in the afternoon, at which time Dr. Duport being then Vicechanceller, read openly certain Articles containing the positions which Master Barret had broached in his foresaid Sermon, alleging these his assertions to be Erronious, false, and opposite, to the Religion received, and established in the Kingdom of England, by public and lawful Authority: to which Articles he required Master Barret to give an answer: who confessed, that he had published in his Sermon, the-Positions comprised in the said Articles, but with all, denied them to be contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England. Whereupon the Vicechancellor and the forenamed heads, entering into a mature deliberation, and diligently weighing and examining these Positions; because it did manifestly appear that the said Positions Were false, erroneous, and likewise manifestly repugnant to the Religion received and established in the Church of England; adjudged and declared, that the said Barret had incurred the penalty of the 45. Statute of that Vniuersity, De Concionibus: and by virtue and tenor of that Statute they decreed and adjudged the said Barret to make a public Recantation, in such words and form as should be prescribed unto him by the Vice-chancellor, and the said Heads, or any three, or two of them; or ese upon his refusal to recant in this manner, to be perpetually expelled, both from his College, and the University; binding him likewise in an assumpsit of forty pounds to appear personally upon two days warning, before the said Vice-chancellor, or his Deputy, at what time and place they should require. Afterwards this Barret was re-summoned before the Vice-chancellor, Doctor Goad, Dr Tyndale, Dr. Barwell, and Doctor Preston, his assistants, who delivered him this praecedent Recantation in writing; admonishing and peremptorily enjoining him on Saturday following, being the 10. of May, immediately after the Clerum ended, to go up in person into the Pulpit of Saint Mary's, where he had published these errors, and there openly in the face of the Vniuersity, to read and make this Recantation, which he did accordingly. Not long after this Palinodium, Master Barret, (to show that these positions are but a bridge to Popery) departs the University, and gets beyond Sea; where he (as Bertius, and some other Arminians since have done) turns a professed Papist: After this he returned into England, where he lives a Laymans life, being still an open, dangerous, violent, and most pernicious and seducing Papist, as some men of credit in these very terms have informed me, who both know, and will aver him to be such a one.

This is the true Relation and carriage of this Recantation, which I have taken verbatim out of a Transcript of the University Register of Cambridge, under the Registers own hand; wherein all the passages of it are entered and recorded, for the benefit of posterity. For the recantation it self, (of which Thysius, and others make some mention) it was fairly Printed and Published in Queen Elizabeth's days, (some Copies of it being yet extant) in the very selfsame words, and form as here you see it. And that none may suspect it to be forged, or corrupted: I have a transcript of it in Latin, taken out of an Original Copy under Master Barets own hand: which agrees verbatim with this English one, only in this they differ: that our 17. Article is at large recited in the Latin Copy in the ende of the 6. Section, whereas as it is only named in the English.

From this Recantation, and the carriage of it; it is clearly evident; That the University of Cambridge in those days, did undoubtedly believe and maintain the now Arminian Heresies of the final and total Apostasy of the Saints: Of uncertainty of Salvation; of Election from faith, and Reprobation from sin foreseen. Of a personal, not a real difference, between temporary and true saving Faith: (the Points which Barret recanted) to be not only false and erroneous; but likewise manifestly repugnant to the Religion and Doctrine, established and settled in the Church of England, and to the 17. Article: For so are the express words of the Order, and Articles recorded in the University Register: If they were thus evidently repugnant to them then; I doubt not but they are so now: at leastwise in all Cambridge men's repute, who will not (at leastwise should not) so far dishonor their renowned Mother, as to degenerate from her ancient Orthodox and Dogmatical Resolutions.

These are the more ancient public Monuments, and Evidences of our Church, by which the subsequent Conclusions now in Issue must be judged. The several figures inserted into them, and likewise placed in the Margent, have reference to the 7. Anti-Arminian Positions following: the figure of (1) noting out such passages, as punctually confirm the first: the figure of (2) such clauses as evidently back and prove the second of these Assertions, and so every figure successively, answers to its proper Position. If then all these Records which do either Really contain, or at leastwise, evidently declare, the ancient, established, and received Doctrine of the Church of England, give punctual Evidence for these Conclusions, oppugning the contrary Arminian Theses in terminis, or substance, as they do; this question will be then resolved: and our succeeding Anti-Arminian Conclusions acknowledged the undoubted Doctrines of our Church, without anymore debate.

Having thus at large recited the several Grand-charters • and more eminent Records and evidences which our Church affords for trial of this weighty cause, I come now to apply them to the points in issue, which I shall distinctely lay down in this ensuing Antithesis.

These are the fundamental, and main points of difference that are now in question and dispute among us: whether of these have best right and title to the Church of England; which of them are her anciently received, approved, established, professed, and undoubted Doctrine, is the only issue that we are now to try, For the full and final resolution of which grand, yet doubtless Quaere; I shall lay down these three Conclusions which every man must subscribe to.

First, That those of these contradictory Arminian and Anti-Arminian Assertions, which are most consonant to, least variant from, and best warranted, or confirmed by, the Articles of England, Lambheht, and Ireland; the Common-Prayer Book, and Homilies, of our Church: and the Cathechismes, and-Recantation foot-recited; must needs be the received, established, and professed Doctrine of our English Church.

2 Secondly, that those, and those only, of the here-recorded jarring Positions, which were are at first commended and transmitted to our infant Church, by our religious and learned Martyrs in the days of Henry the VIII who then subscribed them with their hands, and Sealed them with their own blood: which were afterward taught and planted in the growth and reformation of our Church, by our learned and eminent Divinity Professors in the flourishing and religious Rain of King Edward the VI. which were watered with the fruitful showers of our blessed Martyrs blood in the fire and fagot-regiment of Queen • Mary, through the malice and cruelty of blood-sucking, soul-starving, and non-preaching Prelates: and have ever since grown up and flourished in our spredding Church, in the peaceable and happy Raignes of Queen Elizabeth, and King James of blessed memory; being always publicly, constantly, unanimously, professedly, and vncontrolablie entertained in both our famous Vniuersittes; taught in our Divinity Schools; justified in our Academical Disputes: preached in our Pulpits; maintained, propagated, and recorded to posterity, as the undoubted Doctrine of our Church ( not by someone or two vnorthodox ambitious, time-serving, nouellizing, Sycophanticall, or romanized Divines, who know no other passage to their own secure up-rising but by religions downfall, which they enterprise) but by the stream & current, of all our Classical, orthodox, eminent & approved Writers from the beginning of Reformation to this present; must needs be the hereditary, legitimate, authorized, established, and professed Doctrine of the Church of England, and the undoubted truth.

3 Thirdly, that such of those Tenants now in issue, which have been constantly oppugned, refelled, and disclaimed, yea, positively condemned • by all the fore-alleged Articles; Common-prayer Book, Homilies, Cathechismes, Recantation: and by all the learned and approved orthodox Authors which our Church hath nourished and produced from her first reformation to this instant: cannot be deemed or adjudged the ancient, embraced, resolved, or undoubted Doctrine of our English Church.

These three infallible rules of trial being thus praemised; if I can now but prove, that the Articles of England, Lambeth, and Ireland: the Common-prayer Book and Homelie of our Church: the authorized Catechism of Edward the VI. the recantation of Barret, &c. together with our renowned Martyrs, Universities, Divinity Schools, and Professors, and the whole succession and series of all our orthodox and approved Writers from the inchoation of reformation to this present; have always constantly, professedly, and in direct and positive terms, maintained, justified, and patronized these seven Anti-Arminian Positions here recorded; oppugning, rejecting, and manifestly condemning the seven opposite Arminian Tenants as Pelagian, Popish, erroneous, and evidently repugnant to the Scriptures and dogmatical Resolutions of out Church; it m • st then be forthwith yielded to me, and adjudged fo • me: That these Anti-Arminian, (not their ad, uerse Arminian) Assertions, are the ancient, approved, resolved, established, and professed Doctrine of the Church of England. And this by the help of God I come [] now to prove.

For the first of these Anti-Arminian Positions concerning the aeternity and immutability of Election and Reprobation; the unalterable, praecise & certain number both of the Elect (the only true Church of Christ) and Reprobate, in regard of God's fore-knowledge and Decree: and the Election of certain particular persons; not of all believers, nor yet generally of all men, in the gross: It is directly, positively, and plainly taught, confirmed, and warranted; by the fore-aledged 17. Article of our Church: by the Articles of Lambeth Article 1. 3. by the Articles of Ireland, Articles 12. 13. 14. 15. by the Book of Common prayer, established by Act of Parliament in our Church: Proposition first; figure (1.) (signifying the first of these Anti-Arminian Propositions to which it hath relation) by the approved and settled Homilies of our Church, figures (1.) throughout their several passages here recorded: by the Cathechismes of King Edward the VI. figures (1.) by Barrets Recantation, and the synod of Dort. Arti. 1. 2. which are punctual in it.

Add we to these public irrefragable and binding Records, the express concurrent suffrages of three of our eminent and learned Martyrs, (whom laborious and studious Master Fox in his Praeface to their works, printed together at London 1563. by John Day, which Edition I here follow: hath truly styled; the chief Ring-leaders of the Church of England: to wit, Master William Tyndale, in his Paraeble of the wicked Mommon, page 70. 77. 80. In his Answer to Master Moors Dialogue: page 250. 257. 268. 290. 292. In his Answer to Master Moors second Book, cap. 3. 4. pa. 293. 294. Answer to his third Book page 306. 307. Answer to his fourth Book, cap. 10. page 329. and in his Pathway into the holy Scriptures page 380. Master John Frith, in his Answer unto Rastals Dialogue, page 10. in his Declaration of Baptism, page 92. 93. and Master Doctor Barns, what the Church is, page 248. That Freewill of her own strength can do nothing but sin, page 227. 278. 279. Who maintained this Assertion in these works of theirs, and confirmed it with their blood in the days of Henry the VIII. oppugning and condemning the contrary.

Descend we unto Edward the VI. his pious Raig • e, here we shall find, that learned Doctor Peter Martyr, a man so eminent and famous in his age, that he was chosen and settled Divinity P • ofessor in the famous Vniuersity of Oxford, my much honored, Mother: both by the King and State, who sent for him from beyond the seas to this very purpose) abundantly confirming this truth, and for all its fellow Positions, and copiously refuting the opposite Assertions, in his laborious and learned Commentary on the Romans, cap. 9. (being nothing, else as himself professeth in his Epistle Dedicatorie, but the p • blicke Lectures which he read in the University of Oxford, whiles he was there Professor) Tiguri 1559. pag, 682. to 740. and in his Loci Communes Classis 3. cap. 1. sect. 10. to 40. Here we may meet with his learned and entire Friend and fellow- Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, by the States especial appointment, Master Martin Bucer (who concurred in all points of Doctrine with him without the least dissent) maintaining this, and • ts associated Positions; repugning all the contrary, in his Commentary on Rom. 8. 30. cap. 9. 11. to 23. cap. 11. 2. to 6. Dedicated to our Religious Martyr Archbishop Cranmer; and in sundry other of his works: both of them planting this first, and all its subsequent Anti-Arminian Conclusions in both our famous Universities; who together with the whole Church of England, (as our learned Doctor Whitaker's heretofore, and our judicious Doctor Ward of late, have jointly testified) have ever since, from the very first restitution of the Gospel to this present, even constantly embraced, and defended them as the undoubted truth and Doctrine of our Church. Here we may meet with the constant and godly Martyr Master Hugh Latimer. Bishop of Worcester, ( who so admired Peter Martyrs worth and labors, that he openly requested King Edward the VI. to give him a thousand pounds, instead of his hundred marks by the year) concurring with him, and us, in this our Anti-Arminian Conclusion in his Sermons. London 1584. fol. 311. 312. 325. 326. 327. Here learned and pious Master Thomas Beacon, Divinity Professor in the University, in his Sick Mans salve, London 1680. page 271. to 275. 424. to 430. Here godly and learned Cranmer Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, in our fore-mentioned. Homilies, which were most of them penned and composed by him. Here Master John Bradford, in his Defense of Predestination; in his Treatise of Predestination and Freewill: and in his Brief sum of the doctrine of Predestination and Election, Printed by Rowland Hall 1562. (being the self-same year wherein our Articles were cōposed: together with Stephen Garret, in his Sum of the holy Scripture, London 1547. cap. 4. 6. and 7. do fully jump with us in this Conclusion, which most of them confirmed with their blood.

Descend we lower to Queen Elizabeth's Rain: here we shall not only meet with our 17. Article, (composed by Peter Martyr, and Martin Bucer their Scholars, as Doctor Whitaker's informs us: and therefore more likely to concur with us in all things, as their Tutors did:) but likewise with learned John Veron his Books, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth about the beginning of her Rain; entitled, A sru • full Treatise of Predestination, with An Apology or defense of the doctrine of Predestination, Printed by John Tisdale, London: where all our several Anti-Arminian points are largely, learnedly, and punctually discussed and defended: with Reverend Master Nowell his authorized Catechism, Creed, third part, The holy Catholic Church, The Communion of Saints, and the Forgiuenesse of sins: with the quaestions and answers upon it: with laborious and charitable Master John Fox, in his renowned Book of Martyrs Edition 7. London 1596. page 1505. 1506. With Robert Hutton in his Sum of Divinity, London 1565. cap of Predestination, and of the Church: with John Daniel his Excellent Comfort to all Christians, against all kind of Calamities, London 1576. cap. 27. of Predestination, and of glorification thereby: with Master Thomas Palfryman one of her Majesty's Chapel, in his Treatise of heavenly Philosophy, London 1578. lib. 1. cap. 7. of the Free Election of God &c. page 74 to 103. With Master James Price, his Fan of the Faithful, London 1578. Epistle to the Reader, cap. 1. That Election is not general, but particular and several, cap. 2. That the Elect were elected before the foundation of the world, and cannot finally perish, cap. 3. and 4. that the Kingdom of heaven is not prepared, generally for all: That Christ profitteth not the Reprobate and unbelieving for which his Kingdom is not praepared • all punctual to our purpose: with Master Edward Dering Lecture 9. on the Hebrews 2. ver. 9. Lecture 10. on ver. 13. and Lecture 27. Master John Northbrooke, in his Poor man's Garden, cap. 1. of Predestination, and Reprobation: with Master Sparke, in his Comfortable Treatise for a troubled Conscience, London 1580. Master Keilway, in his Sermon of Sure Comfort, London 1581. page 23. to 27. With Master Gurney in his Fruitful Treatise, between Reason and Religion, London 1581. page 38. to 47. With Master John Anwicke his Meditations upon God's Monarchy, and the Devils Kingdom, London 1587. cap. 6. 7. 10. 11. With Bartimaeus Andreas, Sermon 2. on Canticles 5. London 1595 page 64. 65. 66. With Master John Smith, in the Doctrine of Prayer in general for all men, London 1595. page 79. to 91. Learned and ready Doctor Fulke, together with Master Cartwright: Notes on the Rhemish Testament, on Acts 27. sect. 3. on Rom. 8. sect. 8. and 9. sect. 2. 3. 4. 5. on Math. 3. sect. 7. cap. 13. sect. 3. cap. 22. sect. 2. and on John 15. sect. 3. Learned Master Doctor William Whitaker's De Ecclesia Controuersia 2. Quaest. 1. and Cygnea Cantio, Cantabrigiae Octobris 9. 1595. page 6. to 20. Reverend and learned Doctor Matthew Hutton, Archbishop of York, and formerly Professor of Divinity in Cambridge, De Electione & Reprobatione Commentatio, Hardrouici 1613. To whom I might add Doctor Whitgift Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, with the rest of our Divines, who composed the Articles of Lambeth, and Barrets Recantation formerly mentioned. Robertus Somus De Tribus Quaestionibus, Quaest. 1. and 3. Doctor Esteius Oratio, De certitudine salutis, Hardrouici per Thysium 1613. Doctor Chaderton De iustificationis & fider perseuerantia non in • erscisa. Doctor Willet De Praedestinatione, Quaest. 1. 2. Synopsis Papism • , page 904. to 922. Commentary on Rom. 8. Controuersie 16. to 21. cap. 9. Contr. 7. to 12. cap. 11. contr. 1. 2. 3. Master Greenham Grave Council and godly observations, in his works, London 1612. page 36. 45. 122. Treatlse of Blessedness, page 207. his 14. Sermon page 255. Godly Instructions, cap. 53. page 764. A Letter consolatory page 878. 879. Master William Perkins his Order of causes of Salvation and Damnation, in his works, London 1612. Tom. 1. page 76. to 114. An Exposition on the Creed, page 276. to 297. Of God's Free grace and man's Free-will, page 723. A Treatise of Predestination, Tom. 2. page 606. to 641. An Exposition on Jude, Tom. 3. page 316. Master John Hill, in his Life everlasting, Cambridge 1601. Book 5. page 522. to 653. Where all our Arminians Tenants are in terminis confuted. Reverend Bishop Babington, in his Sermon at Paul's Cross on John 6. 37. the 2. Sunday on Michaelmas Terme, 1590. part 1. and 3.

All these religious, eminent, authorized and learned wri • ers of our Church have unanimously, successively, and vninterruptedly (yea, most of them professedly, and in terminis,) maintained and justified this our first Anti-Arminian Thesis, with all its following Conclusions, as the orthodox truth and undoubted doctrine of our Church; oppugning and copiously refelling its contrary Arminian Tenent as Popish, Romish, and Pelagian; during the whole Rain of Queen Elizabeth, not one authorized writer of our Church so much as once dissenting from them for ought that I can find: and shall we now begin to question, whether it be the doctrine of our Church, or no?

Descend we lower to king James his Rain. And here with whom may we more fitly begin then with this our learned King himself, who in the first year of his Rain, in the praesence of sundry Nobles Prelates and Deans, in the Conference at Hampton Court, pag. 30. and 43. makes mention both of eternal Predestination and Reprobation: expressly aucrring, That Predestination and El • ction depend not upon any qualities, actions, or works of man which be mutable, but upon God his eternal and immutable Decree and purpose: then which determination of his (approved and applauded by all there present) nothing can be more full and punctual to our present Conclusion: Moreover, he likewise brands Arminianism, with the name of (HERESY) Arminians with the style of Atheistical sestaries, and (PESTILENT HERETICKES) who dare take upon them that licentious liberty to fetch again from hell the ancient heresies long since condemned: or else to invent new of their own brain, contrary to the belief of the true Catholic Church: (a stigmaticall Impresse which our Arminians shall never be able to claw off again,) in his Declaration against Vorstius, London 1612. page 15. 19. 22. near the midst of his peaceable Rain: And as if all this were not sufficient, in a private Conference with two learned Divines not long before his death, now published by his special command, he christened our Armini • ans, with the name of new Pelagians: being thus, as you see, a professed enemy to them, and their Opinions, both in the beginning, middle, and end of his most peaceable Rain: as his special care in conventing the famous Synod of Dort, and his approbation of all their dogmatical Resolutions, super-added to these three former evidences, will at large declare. As this our learned King, and King of learning, thus constantly displayed himself against Arminianism in general, & this our Arminian Error in particular: so all our learned Writers of his age, ( as men do commonly conform their judgments to their Princes Tenants ) did worth • lie suffragate to his, and these our Anti-Arminian Conclusions: witness • our famous Doctor Reinolds: who alone was a well furnished Librarie full of all faculties, of all studies, of all learning: whose memory, whose reading were near to a miracle, as one well observes: in his Thesis 4. in Schola Theologica tractata: November 2. 1579. sect. 23. to 27. and Apologia Thesium: sect. 12. to 23. Londini 1602. being the first year of King lames his Rain: witness learned and scolasticall Doctor Field: of the Church, Book 1, cap. 3. 4. 7. 8. 10. Book 3. Appendix, cap. 14. Edit. 2. Oxford. 1628. p. 33. Master Thomas Draxe in his Worlds Resurrection, London 1609. pag. 2. 3. 23. 78. Master Trendall his Ark against the Dragons flood, London 1608. page 4. 6. Master Thomas Rogers Chaplein to Archbishop Bancroft in his Analysis on the 39. Articles, entitled, The faith, doctrine, and religion, professed and protected in the Realm of England and Dominions of the same: perused, and by the lawful Authority of the Church of England, allowed to be public: Proposition, 1. 2. 3. 4. on Article 17. Master Turnball, Sermon 1. on Jude 1. 2. Godly and painful Master Samuel Heiron in his Spiritual Sonneship 1. part of his works, London 1620. page 365. to 372. Learned Doctor John White, in his Way to the true Church, London 1610, Digression 40. sect. 49. page 270. in his Defense of the way, cap. 25. sect. 10. to the end, London 1624. page 128. to 138. Sermon at Paul's Cross, March 20. 1615. sect. 8. Learned Doctor Robert Abbot Bishop of Salisbury, and Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford: in his Divinity Lecture in the University Schools Oxoniae, July 10. 1613. sect. 1. 2. 3. 4. in his other three Lectures, 1614. and 1615. London 1618. Animaduersio in Thompsoni Diatribam, cap. 5. Master Brightman on the Revelation, cap. 3. ve. 8. cap. 17. ver. 8. cap. 21. 27. Master Richard Stock: in his Doctrine and use of Repentance, London, 1610. page 167. to 172. Learned Doctor Benefield, late Lady Margaret's Professor in the University of Oxford, De Sanctorum perseuerantia, lib. 2. cap. 18. 20. Francofurti, 1618. page. 260. 261. Learned Doctor Crackenthorpe, in his Sermon of Predestination, preached at Saint Mary's in Oxford, London 1620. Master Thomas Wilson, in his Exposition upon the Romans, cap. 9. ver. 11. 12. to 29. and cap. 11. ver. 5. 6. 7. 8. Edition 2. London 1627. page 348. 380. 444. to 460. Doctor John Boys, late Dean of Canterbury, in his Exposition of the Epistle on Innocents day, and on Psalm, 104. on Whitsunday Euening, in his works; London 1622. page 613. 614. 625. 941. Master Samuel Crooke in his Guide, Edition 4. London 1625. section 4. 9. and 17. Learned Doctor Ames in his Coronis ad collationem Hagiensem, Lugduni Batauorum, 1618. Articulus 1. and 2. Eminent and renowned Doctor Prideaux in his Lecture, 1. July 6. in the Vniuersity Schools at Oxford, where he then was, and now is, Regius Professor of Divinity: Learned Sir Christopher Sybthorpe in his Friendly Aduertisement, to the Catholics of Ireland, Dublin 1623. cap. 7. 8. page 153. to 214. Master Adams in his Churches Glory, on Hebr. 12. 23. page 65. to 90. Master Elnathan Parre in his Grounds of Divinity, Edit. 4. London 1622. page 281. to 309. Master Robert Yarrow; in his Sovereign comfort for a troubled conscience, London 1619 cap. 38. 29. page 352. &c. Godly and learned Master Paul Bayne, in his Commentary on Ephesians 1. London 1618. page 64. to 256. Doctor Griffith Williams, in his Delights of the Saints, London 1622. page 7. to 70. Master John Downame, in his Sum of sacred Divinity, lib. 2. cap. 1. page 283. to 310. cap. 6. page 399. Master Humphery Sydenham, in his Jacob and Esau, or Election and Reprobation, preached at Paul's Cross, March 4. 1622. London 1627. Master John Frewen, in his Grounds of Religion, London 1621. Quaest. 13. page 278. 279. 280. Learned Doctor Francis White, now Bishop of Norwich, in his Orthodox, London 1624. page 105. 108. and in his Conference with Fisher, page 49. to 55. Godly and painful Master Byfield, in his Treatise of the Pr • mises, cap. 13. page 386. 387. and in his Exposition on the Collossians cap. 3. ver. 12. page 75. Doctor Sclater Sermon at Paul's Cross, 1609. on Hebr. 6. 4. 5. Exposition on I. Epistle of the Thessalonians, cap. 1. ver. 5. page 39. 40. cap. 5. ver. 9. 10. page 438. to 455. ver. 24. page 556. 557. Exposition on Epistle 2. cap. 1. ver. 10. p. 53. 54. Add we as a Corrollarie and Conclusion to all these, the Resolution of our eminent Dort Divines: to wit, Doctor Carlton late Bishop of Chichester: Doctor Dauenat, now Bshop of Salisbury, Doctor Goad, Doctor Ward, Lady Margaret's Professor in Cambridge, & Doctor Belcankwell Dean of Rochester, which concurs with this our Position in terminis, condemning the contrary as crronious and heretical, as the English Synod of Dort approved of by King James, Article 1. and 2. throughout. Doctor Wards Suffragium Brittanorum, London 1627. Articulus 1. and 2. together with the Synod it self, Printed in folio, Article 1. 2. Theologorum magnae Brittanniae Sententia, do at large declare. Thus hath this our present Position been constantly maintained as the undoubted truth and doctrine of our Church, by all the fore-quoted Authors, from the beginning of Reformation to the present Rain of our gracious King Charles, not one approved Author of our Church (to my knowledge) so much as once oppugning it. How this Assertion hath been justified as the received Doctrine of out Church since his Majesty's happy Rain: the Examination of Master Montagues Appeale by Reverend Bishop Carlton, cap. 3. 4. with the joint Attestation of him and all our fore-named Dort Divines, thereto annexed under all their hands, page 26. Doctor Ward his S • ffragium Brittanorum, & Concio ad Clerum London 1627. Bishop Dauenate his Expositio Epistolae Pauli ad Collossenses, Cantabrigiae, 1627. page 117. 118. 119. 171. 173. 390. 391. Doctor Goad, and Doctor Daniel Featly, in their Pelagius Rediuiuus parallel. 1. sect. 3. 5. Parallel 2. sect. cap. 2. 1. Doctor Featly in his 2. Parallel, London 1626. page 1. to 20. Master Henry Burton, in his Plen to an Appeale, page 39. to 60. and in his Truth triumphing over Trent. London 1629. cap. 17. Master Yates, in his Ibicad Caesarem, cap. 8. 9. 10. Master Wotton in his Dangerous Plot Discouered, cap. 20. Master Francis Rouse, in his Doctrine of King James. page 1. to 25. And my own Perpetuitie of a Regenerate man's estate, Edit. 2. page 6. to 23. can abundantly testify since therefore this first Anti-Arminian Position hath been always thus constantly, unanimously, and vncontrolably maintained by all those several Martyrs, Prelates, Doctors, and approved Writers; in all the successive Raignes of these 6. English Monarchs, from the beginning of Reformation to this present, oppugning its opposite Arminian Thesis, as erroneous, and repugnant to the received Doctrine of our English Church, we may safely embrace it, yeaestablish it as the undoubted Doctrine of the Church of England.

For the second of these Anti-Arminian Positions, touching the freeness of God's Election, and its in-dependancy on faith, or will, or works, or perseverance, or endeavors, or any other condition, or praeuious disposition in the persons elected: it is undoubtedly and manifestly warranted, by the express words of our 13. and 17. Articles. Of the 2. Article of Lambeth: of the 14. Article of Ireland: of our Common-prayer Book, and Homilies: of the fore-cited Catechism and Quaestions, figures which have all relation to it: of the Synod of Dort. Article 1. and of Barrets Recantation in the Latin copy, section 6. where our 17. Article is verbatim recited.

To these I shall add the concurrent, plenary and copious attestation of Master William Tyndale Martyr, in his Parable of the wicked Mammon, page 70. 75. 78. 80. 88. 90. in his Answer to Master Moors Dialogue p. 259. Answer to his 2. Book, cap. 3. page 293. Answer to his 4. Book, cap. 10. page 329. cap. 11. page 331. 332. 337, in his Pathway into the holy Scriptures, page 380. and in his Exposition on the first Epistle of John, cap. 3. page 410. 412. cap. 4. page 416. 417. 419. Of Master John Frith Martyr, in his Mirrour to know thy self, page 84. 85. in his Declaration of Baptism, page 92. 93. Of Doctor Barns a learned Martyr, in his Treatise, What the Church is, page 246. and that Free-will of her own strength can do nothing but sin, page 274. 277. 278. 279. Of Master John Harrison in his Yet about at the Romish Fox, Zurich 1543. In the days of King Henry the VIII. Of learned Peter Martyr once Professor of Divinity in the University of Oxford, Commentary on the Romans 8. page 532. 533. 534. c. 9. page 700. to 714. in cap. 11. page 869. and Loci Communes Classis 3. cap. 1. sect. 11. and 16. to 27. Of famous Martin Bucer once Divinity Reader in the University of Cambridge, Commentary on Romans 9. ver. 11. to 27. and on Rom. 11. 4. 5. 6. Of Master Hugh Latimer Martyr, Bishop of Worcester, in his Sermon on the third Sunday after Epiphany, fol. 312. and on the Sunday called Septuagesima fol. 325. 326. 327. Of a Book entitled the Sum of holy Scriptures, by Stephen Garret (as most suppose) Printed 1547. in the 2. year of King Edward the VI. cap. 6. Of Thomas Beacon a Divinity Professor, afterward a Martyr, in his Sickmans Salue, London 1580. page 412. 413. 414. Of learned Master John Hooper Bishop and Martyr, in his Declaration of the 10. Commandments, Epistle to the Reader, written November 5. 1549. London 1588. Of Master John Bradford Martyr, in his Brief Sum of the doctrine of Election and Predestination, a punctual Treatise to our present purpose, and in this Letter recorded by Master John Fox in his Book of Martyrs, page 1505. Col. 1. Of John Carelesse, and Master Woodman godly Martyrs, Master Fox in his Martyriologe, London 1596. page 1742. Col. 2. l. 40. 60. and page 1809. 1810. Col. 1. in the days of persecuting Queen Mary. Of Master John Veron, in his Fruitful Treatise of Predestination, and his Apology for the same, dedicated to Queen Elizabeth. Of Master John Fox in his Martyriologe, page 1505. 1506. Of Reverend Dean Nowel, in his Catechism on the Creed, Why we call God Father, and of the holy Catholic Church. Of Master Thomas Palfryman Treatise of heavenly Philosophy, lib. 1. cap. 7. Of Master Robert Caundish, in The Image of Nature, and Grace, fol. 8. fol. 45. to 57. cap. 9. fol. 100. to 110. Of Master James Price his Fan of the Faithful, Epistle to the Reader, and cap. 1. 2. 14. Of Master Robert Hutton Sum of Divinity, Lond • n 1565. cap. Of Grace and of Predestination. Of godly Master Edward Deering Lecture 9. and 27. on the Hebrews. Of Master John North-brook, The •• ore man's Garden, cap. 1. and 18. Of Master Arthur G • rney, A fruitful Dialogue between Reason and Religion, fol. 39. to 47. Of Master A • wicke his Meditations upon God's Monarchy, and the Devils Kingdom, cap. 6. 7. of incomparable M Hooker Discourse of Justification. sect 29 • Of Master Anthony Anderson. A goldly Seemon of Sure Comfort, page 23. to 27. Of Master Thomas Sparkes, his Confortable Treatise, How a man may be assured in his own Conscience of his • lection. Of Reverend Bishop Babington Sermon at Paul's Cross 1590. part 1. and 3. Of profound and rea •• Doctor Fulke, that Hammer of Haer tickes and Ch • mpion of truth: Together with Master Thomas Carth w •• ght Notes on Rom. 9. sect. 2. 3. 5. and on 2. Peter • . sect. 2. Of Bartim us Andreas Sermon 2. on 〈◊〉 5. page 64. 65. 66. Of learned Doctor Matthew Ha •• on 〈◊〉 •• shop of York, De Electione & Rep • obatione Commentatio: to whom I might add Reverend Doctor Whitgift Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, and all those other learned Prelates, Doctors, and grave Dr • ines, who composed the Articles of Lambet • , an • Barrets Recantation, fore-ci • ed. O solid Doctor Whitaker's whom no man ever 〈…〉 rence, or heard without wonder. C • gnea Cantio page 2 to 18. Of profound Master William Perkins. Of the Order and causes of Election and Reprobati • n • cap. • 〈◊〉 51. Tom 1. page 16. 95. to 114. • xpositio • 〈◊〉 Creed, page 277. to 299. A Treatise of 〈◊〉 Tom. 2. page 606. to 641. Exposition on lude, 〈◊〉 page 516. 517. Of Master Greenham. A Treatise of 〈◊〉 sednesse, page 207. Of Doctor Robert Some 〈◊〉 of Predestination, and Tractatus De Tribus Qua • t • on • bu • Quaest. 1. and 3. Of Master John Hill Life euerla ••••• 〈◊〉 page 526. 527. 528. in the Rain of blessed Elizabeth 〈◊〉 our late learned Sovereign K. James. Conferēce at Hāto • Court, page 43. Where his Majesty expressly delivereth his Royal Resolution of this point in these puctuall • earmes: Predestination and Election, depends not upon any qualities, actions, or works of man, which be mutable, but of God's eternal and immutable Decree and purpose: in which Resolution he constantly continued till his death; as his Commentary on the Lord's Prayer, and the Revelation: his Declaration against Vorstius, his Approbation of the Synodical Resolutions, and Conclusions at Dort, and his Conference with two of our English Divines, about a month before his death, newly published by Doctor Daniel Featly, page 31. 32. will fully evidence. Of laborious and learned Doctor Willet Commentary on Rom. 8. Controuersie, 16. 17. 18. cap. 9. Controuersie 7. 8. 10. cap. 11. Controuersie 3. Synopsis papismi, page 881. 904. to 908. 918. to 922. Of eminent and incomparable Doctor Reinolds Thesis, 4. and Apologia Thesium, sect. 14. to 23. of Master Thomas Bell in his Downefall of Popery, London 1608. Article 5. page 61. in his Catholic Triumphe, London 1610. cap. 9. page 244. to 448. Of learned Doctor Robert Abbos, late Bishop of Salisbury, Lectura 1. De Gratia & Perseuerantia Sanctorum, sect. 3. De Veritate Gratia Christi, July 8. 1615. sect. 12. to the end. Octobris, 15. 1615. sect. 5. 6. 7. 8. Oratio 4. eodem Anno Octobris 29. sect. 6. Animaduersio in Thampsoni Diatribam, cap. 4. 5. Of Master Thomas Rogers Analysis on the 17. Article Proposition 5. Of Doctor Field, Of the the Church, lib 1. cap. 1. to 7. Of Master Samuel Hieron Abridgement of the Gospel in his works, part 1. page 104. 105. The worth of the water of life, page 203. 204. The spiritual Son-ship, page 370 371. Of Doctor John White Way to the true Church Digressio 41. sect. 43. 44. 45. 49 Defense of the way, cap. 21. 25. 38. sect. 6. 10. to 16. Sermon at Paul's Cross, sect. 8. Of Doctor Francis White, now Bishop of Norwich in his Orthodox, cap. 8. Of Doctor Crakenthorpe in his Sermon of Predestination. Of Doctor Ames Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem Artic. 1. and 2. Of Doctor Griffith Williams Delights of the Saints, part 1. page 68. 69. 70. 93. Or Doctor Sclater Sermon at Paul's Cross 1 • 09. An Exposition on the Thessalonians lately published, cap. 5. v. 9. 10. page 438. to 455. on Epistle 2. cap. 1. ver. 11. page 67 cap. 2. verse 13. page 178. to 190. Of Master Elnathan Parre Grounds of Divinity, Edit. 4. page 285. to 341. Of Master Draxe, in his Wolds Resurrection, page 3. 78. 110. Of Master Samuel Crooke Guide to Godliness, sect. 4. and 17. Of Mast 1 John Downame Sum of Divinity lib. 2. cap 1. and 6. Of Master Paul Baine Commentary on Ephesians 1. page 71. to 150. where this point is largely handled. Of Master Elton and Master Randall in their Sermons on Romans 8. 29. 30. Of Doctor Boys Whit • unday Euening prayer page 940. to 944. in his works. Of Master Robert Yarrow Sovereign Comfort for a troubled Conscience, cap. 28. to the end of cap. 36. Of Doctor Benefield De Sanctorum perseuerantia, lib. 2. cap. 18. 20. Of Master Humphrey Sydenham, his Jacob and Esan • preached at Paul's Cross 1622. part 1. Of Sir Christopher Sybthorpe, in his friendly Aduertisement to the pretended Catholi • kes of Ireland, cap. 7. 8. Of eminent and acute Doctor Prideaux Lecture Oxontae in Comitijs, Anno 1616. De absoluto Decreto. Of Master Nathaniel Byfield in his Treatise of the Promises, cap. 11. 13. Exposition on the Colossians, cap. 3. ver. 12. page 74. 75. Of Master Thomas Wilson Exposition on Romans 9. ver. 11. 12. Of incomparable Doctor Usher, now Arch-Bishop of Armagh, and Primate of Ireland, his Answer to the Jesuits Challenge of Free-will, page 464. to 492. With all our famous Dort Divines, Synod of Dort Arcicle 1. i • the Rain of famous King James. • O • Reverend and learned Bishop Carlton Examination of Master Montague's Appeale, cap. 3. 4. Of learned Doctor Dauenat Bishop of Salisbury, Expositie Epistolae • aul • ad Colossenses, cap. 3. ver. 12. page 390. 391. Of solid Doctor Ward, Concio ad Clerum Cantabrigiae, Ian. 12. 1625. page 30. to 33. Of acute Doctor Featly, his 2. Parallel, page 1. to 14. and in his and Doctor Thomas Goads joint Pelaguos Rediuiuu • . Of Master Henry Burton Plea to an Appeale, page 39. to 71. Truth triumphing over Trent, cap. 17. Of Doctor John Bastwicke, Elenchus Religions Papisticae, cap. 8. 9. and 11. Of Master Yates Ibis ad Caesarem, part 1. cap. 6. 7. 8. 10. 18. part 2. cap. 1. 2. 3. Of Master Wotton, A Dangerous plot Discouered, cap. 19. 20. Of Master Francis Rouse. The Doctrine of King James, page 1. to 25. Of Master Richard Scudder The Christians daily walk, Edit. 2. London 1628. page 431. 439. 613. 615. Master William Pemble in his Vindiciae gratiae, page 38. to 44. Of Master Thomas Vicars in his Pusillus Grex, Oxoniae 1627. Of M. Richard Bernard Rheemes against Rome, p. 311. 312. Of Master John Barlow Exposition on the 2. Tim. 1. 9. and cap. 2. 19. 20. 21. Of Doctor Sclater Exposition on the Epistles to the Thessalonians sore-cited. All these most Reverend, eminent and learned Martyrs, Prelates, Doctors, Divines, and Writers of our Church, in these their several works and ages, have punctually and copiously concurred in the unanimous defense and confirmation of this our second Anti-Arminian Conclusion, oppugni • g, refuting, the contrary Arminian Position, as Pelagian, Semi-Pelagian, Popish, Arminian, erroneous, and opposite to the received Doctrine of our Church, not one authorized Author, or Orthodox Writer of our Church, so much as one dissenting from them: therefore we may undoubtedly receive it, declare it, and adjudge it, as the established; resolved, and professed Doctrine of our English Church.

[ 3] The third of these fore mentioned Anti-Arminian Conclusions; touching the absoluteness, immutabili • ie, and impulsive or primary cause of the Decr • e (not of the Act or execution) of Reprobation or Non-election, is necessarily implied and raised from our 17. Article, as Doctor Whitaker's and others have observed: it is fully warranted and proved by the 1. and 4. Articles of Lambeth, which well explain our 17. Article in this point, as learned Doctor Prideaux hath observed; by the 11. 12. and 14. Articles of Ireland: by our fore-named Homilies, figures (3) by the Catechism of Predestination figures (3) by the Synod of Dort, Articles 1. 2. and by the express wor • s of Barrets Recantation, composed by the University He • ds of Cambridge, section 6. where our 17. Article is likewise quoted for to warrant it. Our learned godly Martyrs in the Regiment of King Henry the VIII. have suffraged to this Tenent, witness Master William Tyndalls Parable of the Wicked Mammon, page 80. Col. 2. Answer to Master Moors fourth Book, cap. 10. page 329. Master John Frith, A Mirrour to know thyself, page 84. and learned Doctor Barns, That Freewill of her own strenth can do nothing else but sin, page 270. 271. 274. 276. to 283. where this point is largely handled.

Our learned Divinity Professors in King Edwards days are full and copious in this point, witness Peter Martyr in his Comment. in Epist. ad Romanos, cap. 9. Tiguri 1559. page 697. 718. and Locorum communiuns Classis, 3. cap. 1. sect. 15. 28. to 32. 36. ( being Lectures read in the University of Oxford by King Edwards appointment, and earnestly desired by diverse of the University for the press, as himself records in his Epistle Dedicatorie ) together with Master Martin Bucer in his Commentary on the selfsame Chapter, ver. 11 to 24. Whence eminent Doctor Whitaker's in his Cygnea Cantio, pa. 15. informs us: That Peter Martyr, and Martin Bucer, of honorable memory, did profess this Doctrine of absolute and irresp • ctiue Reprobation, in both our famous Universities, and that our Church, which was most abundantly watered with the fountains of these two eminent Divines, in the days of King Edward the VI •• d always hold it since the restitution of the Gospel to her. This then was the received Doctrine of our Church in King Edwards days; as our 17. Article which was then composed; together with our Homilies forequoted will evince; there being no approved Writer of our Church now extant, that did oppugn it in that age: and should we begin to doubt it now? If any object that Master John Bradford in his Sum of the Doctrine of Predestination and Reprobation; affirms, that our own willfulness, sin, and contemning of Christ, are the cause of Reprobation, therefore this doctrine was not then so generally received: I answer, First, that Master Bradfords explanation of himself in the subsequent li • es will take off this objection: For he informs us, that he speaks only of the second cause of Reprobation (that is of the execution, not of the Decree of Reprobation) which is only sin, not of the first cause of it, (the thing we have now in question) which we cannot comprehend, it being the unsearchable will of God, which we should not search into, further then God doth give us leave in his Word. Secondly, that Master Bradford speaks this only to silence Reprobates and damned men, advising them to look first upon their own sins which bring damnation and God's hatred on them, not upon God's secret Decree of Reprobation, which as it doth not impose a necessity of sinning upon men, so it never brings da •• ation on them but for sin: M. Bradford then speaking only of the actual execution of Reprobation, not of the Decree it self: of the secondary cause of it, not of the first, which is only the unsearchable will of God, makes wholly for our present Tenent, not against it. The self-same answer may be given to that of Bishop Hooper in his Epistle to the Christian Reader. praefixed before his Declaration of the Commandments, where he writes thus: The cause of rejection or damnation is sin in man, which will neither receive the promise of the Gospel, &c. Where rejection, is put, for the execution of Reprobation, or actual damnation, (as this disiunctiue or explanatorie conjunction or the cause of rejection or damnation ) and this marginal note: The cause of damnation in man; annexed to it, due infalliblie demonstrate: of which every man doth readily acknowledge sin to be the only cause: not for the Decree of Reprobation, which hath no other primary moving or impulsive cause, but God's mere will and pleasure: these writers then make wholly for us, not against us, if rightly understood.

This was the constant Tenent and resolution of our eminent Divines in Queen Elizabeth's days, witness John Veron his Fruitful Treatise of Predestination, and the Apology for the same: where it is largely proved, all objections and cavils against it, being there fully answered: witness Master John Fox his Martiriologe, page 1506. line 50. Master Thomas Palfryman Treatise of heavenly Philosophy, cap. 7. Master James Price his Fan of the Faithful, cap. 1. 3. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. Master John North-brook his Poor man's Garden, cap. 1. Master Arthur Gurney his Fruitful Dialogue between Reason and Religion, fol. 38. to 42. Master Anwicke his Meditations of God's Monarchy and the Devils Kingdom, cap. 6. 7. Learned Doctor Fulke, and Master Cartwright Answer to the Rhemish Testament Notes, on Rom. 9. sect. 2. 3. 5. Master Edward Deering on the Hebrews, Lecture 9. Reverend and godly Bishop Babington Sermon at Paul's Cross 1590. part 1. and learned Matthew Hutton Arch-Bishop of York, De Electione & Reprobatione Commentatio: together with Arch-Bishop Whitguift, and all those learned Prelates, Doctors, and Divines, who composed the Assertions of Lambeth and Barrets Recantation. Judicious and solid Doctor Whitaker's, in his Cygnea Cantio, page 3. to 18. Master William Perkins his Treatise of the Order of causes of Election and Reprobation, cap. 7. 50. 51. Tom. 1. page 16. 95. 114. his Exposition on the Creed • p. 277. to 299. and Treatise of Predestination. Tom. 2. page 608. to 641. his Exposition on the Epistle of Jude, ver. 4. Tom. 3. page 516. 517. and Master John Hills Life everlasting, lib. 5. p. 599. to 612. where this our present Assertion is punctually maintained.

Of learned King James himself, Meditation on the Lord's Prayer, and Conference at Hampt • n Court, page 30. 43. Of Doctor Robert Abbot late Bishop of Salisbury, and Divinity Professor in Oxford, Oratio quarta, De Veritate gratiae Christi, October 1615. sect. 6. Of Doctor John Whites Way to the Church, Digression 41. sect. 44. 45. 49. and Defense of the way, cap. 25. sect. 10. to the end, where this point is learnedly handled. Of Doctor Francis White, now Bishop of Norwich, in his Orthodox, cap. 8. paragraph, 1. 2. Of Doctor Crackenthorpe, in his Sermon of Predestination. Of Doctor Willet in his Commentary on Romans 8. Controuersie, 16. cap. 9. Controuersie, 7. 9. 10. 11. and Synosis Papismi page 881. 882. 913. 920. Of Doctor Field Of the Church-Book 1. cap. 4. Of Doctor Ames Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem, Articulus 1. and 2. Of Doctor Benefield De Perseuerantia Sanctorum, lib. 2. cap. 18. 20. Of Doctor Prideaux De Absolut, Decreto Lectura 1. Of Master Thomas Wilson Exposition on Romans cap. 9. v. 11. 12. to 27. and cap. 11. ver. 7. Of Master Thomas Rogers Analysis on the 17. Article, Proposition 4. and 5. Of master Samuel Crooke in his Guide • ect. 4. and 9 Of Master Elnathan. Parre Gro •• ds of Diuini •• page 211. to 309. Of Master Paul • ayne Commentary on Ephesians 1. page 20. 118. Of Master Thomas D • axe in hi • Worlds Resurrection page 3. 78. Of Master Downame in his Sum of Divinity, Book 〈◊〉 cap. 1. page 283. to 311. Of Master Christopher Sybthorp • his Friendly Admonition to the pretended Catholics of Ireland, cap. 7. 8. where this point is excellently handled. Of Doctor Griffith Willams his delights of the Saints page 7. 8. 9. 92. 93. Of Master Humfrey Sydenham in his Jacob and Esau, or Election and Reprobation • preached at Paul's Cross: and of our eminent Dort Divines Synod of Dort. Article 1. and 2. in the days of our late King James. Of Doctor William Sclater his Exposition upon the first Epistle to the Thessalonians, cap. 5. ver. 9. 10. page 447. 448. on Epistle 2. cap. 1. ver. 11. page 68. 69. cap. 2. ver. 13. page 183. Of Master Henry Scudder in his Christians daily Walk, cap. 15. sect. 3. page 432. to 438. Of Doctor John Bastwicke, Elenchus Religions Papisticae, cap. 9. page 194. to 198. Of Reverend Bishop Carlton Examination of Master Montague's Appeale, cap. 2. 3. Of Master Henry Burton his Plea to an Appeale, page 46. to 65. and his Truth triumphing over Trent, cap. 17. Of Bishop Dauenate, Expositio in Epist. Pauli ad Coloss. page 171. Of Master Francis Rouse, his Doctrine of King James. p. 1. to 20 Of Doctor Ward, in his Concio ad Clerum, page 37. 38. Of Master John Yates Ihis ad Caesarem. cap. 1. 2. 7. In the Rain of our now Sovereign King Charles. All these I say, do fully suffragate to this our [ 4] third Anti-Arminian Conclusion, not one authorized or approved writer of our Church (that ever I could meet with) so much as once oppugning or contradicting any of them: therefore we may embrace it, as the undoubted truth and doctrine of our Church. He that desires to see more of this point; let him reflect upon all the Books and Authors fore-quoted in the first and second praecedent Positions, which will plentifully instruct and satisfy him in it.

For the fourth of the recited Anti-Arminian dogmatical Propositions, against Universal and sufficient grace; or in plain tearines, against natural Free-will it self (for this prae • ented grace in truth and substance, is no other since grace is proper and peculiar unto some, and nature only alike indifferent & common unto all men, as this universal grace is) It is directly justified and backed by our 9. 10. 13. & 17. Articles, by the express words of the 7. 8. and 9. Articles of Lambeth, by the 15. 25. 26. and 32. Articles of Ireland: by our Common Prayer Book passages here recited p. 18. 19. 20. Position 2. which are full and punctual to this purpose, by our fore-registered Homilies, and Cathechismes figures (4) By the Synod of Dort Article 3. 4. Add we to these Master William Tyndale Prologue on Numbers page 16. Prologue on the Romans, p. 41. Parable of the wicked Mammon, page 65. 70. 74. 90. The Obedience of a Christian man, page 162. An Answer to Master Moors third Book, page 306. Answer to his fourth Book, cap. 2. page 321. cap. 10. page 328. 329. 337. A Pathway into the holy Scriptures page 380. 381. 382. 384. Exposition on the first Epistle of John. cap. 2. page 401. cap. 4. page 416. 417. Master John Prith, A Mirror to know thyself, page 83. 84. 45. Doctor Barns, That Free-will of her own strength can do nothing but sin, page 266. to 280. Master John Harrison, Yet a cause at the Romish Fox, fol. 61. 62. 63. In King Henry the VIII. his Rain Stephen Garret, The sum of the Scripture, cap. 7. Printed 1547. Peter Martyr, Loci Communes, Classis 3. cap. 1. sect. 29. 38. to 48. Commentarius in Romanos, 5. p. 323. 328. 329. 330. in cap. 9. page 720. to 730. in cap. 11. page 797. 965. 966. Martin B •• er Commentary upon John 5. ver. 44. On Rom. 5. the latter end of the Chapter, and on Rom. 9. Master Hugh Latimer Bishop of Worcester, Sermon 3. on the Lord's Prayer, fol. 134. b. Master John Bradford Treatise of Election and Free-will: Bishop Hooper a Martyr, Epistle to the Reader before his Declaration of the ten Commandments, which place makes wholly for us if rightly understood. Master Beacon his sick man's salve, page 290. Master Richard Caundish his Image of Nature and Grace, cap. 1. 5. 8. 10. where this point is largely handled. Master Nowels Catechism on the Creed, part 1. Master John Veron his Fruitful Treatise of Predestination, fol. 66. to 85. 110. 111. 112. his Apology for the same, fol. 25. to the end. Master Thomas Palfryman Treatise of heavenly Philosophy, cap. 7. 8. Master James Price his Fan of the Faithful, Epistle to the Reader, and cap. 1. 3. Master Edward Deering on the Hebrews Lecture 10. 14. Master Robert Hutton his Sum of Divinity, of Free-will. Master John North-brook his Poor man's Garden, cap. 1. 4. 5. 6. Doctor Sparkes against Albines, cap. 17. page 165. and his Comfortable Treatise for a troubled Conscience the 4. first leaves. Bartimaeus Andreas Sermon 2. on the Canticles, page 64. to 70. Master John Daniel his Excellent comfort to all Christians, cap. 2. 3. 4. 5. 7. Master John Anwicke his Meditations upon God's Monarchy, and the Devils Kingdom, cap. 6. 7. 10. 11. Master Arthur Gurney his fruitful Dialogue between Reason and Religion, fol. 13. to 45. Learned Doctor William Whitaker's, Aduersus Vniuersalis Gratia assertores praelectio habitae, Februarij 27. Anno Domini 1594. c • ram honoratissimis Comitibus Essexio, Salopiensi, Rutlandiensi: illustrissimis Baronibus DD. Montioy, Burrowes, Compton, Sheafield, Riche: ornatissimis Equitibus Guil. Bows, Carolus Candish, Robertus Sydney, Georgio Sauil, & multos generosos, on 2. Tim. 2. 4. Hardouic • per Thysium 1613. Reuetend Bishop Babingtons Sermon at Paul's Cross 1591. on John 6. 37. part 1. Doctor Fulke and Master Cartwright, Answer to the Rhemish Testament, Notes on 1. Tim. 2. sect. 3. on Rom. 7. sect. 7. 8. on Rom. 9. sect. 3. 7. and sundry other places: Doctor Fulkes Defense of the English Translations against Martin, cap. 10. Matthew Hutton Arch-Bishop of York, De Electione & Reprobatione Commentatio. Doctor Some Tractatus de Tribus Quaestionibus, Quaest. 1. 2. Master Greenham his 14. Sermon page 355. Godly Instructions, cap. 50. sect. 16. page 757. Master William Burton his David's Evidence Sermon 4. on Psal. 4. 12. London 1596. page 83. to 88. Master John Smith his Doctrine of general prayer for all men. Master William Perkins Of the Order of causes of salvation and damnation, cap. 54. Tom. 1. page 107. 112. An Exposition on the Creed, page 293. to 299. Of God's Free grace, and man's Free-will, page 728. to 743. Babylon the present Church of Rome, point 1. page 558. to 561. Commentary on Galatians 3. Tom. 2. page 249. 250. cap. 5. page 327. 338. A Treatise of Predestination, page 621. to 642. Exposition of Christ's Sermon on the Mount, Tom. 3. page 117. 118. 187. 219. 230. 242. 243. Commentary on Hebr. 11. Tom. 2. 3. page 165. 166. Exposition on the Revelation, c. 2. ver. 7. page 280. 281. on cap. 3. ver. 4. page 333. 334. where this point is fully and excellently discussed. Doctor John Hill Life everlasting, Book 4. Quaest. 4. 5. page 348. 349. 350. In the Rain of Queen Elizabeth. Doctor Reinolds Apologia Thesium, sect. 12. to 23. Doctor Andrew Willet in his Excellent Treatise De gratia Vniuersali, where this point is purposely debated: in his Synosis papismi page 881. to 918. Commentary on Rom. 5. Quaest. 38. 39. and Controuersie 23. Master Francis Trigge his true Catholic, cap. 1. page 27. to 44. Doctor Abbot Bishop of Salisbury in his several Lectures De veritate gratia Christ • , against Arminius and his followers, read in the Divinity Schools of Oxford, whiles he was there Regius Professor, London 1618. page 15. to 82. Master Thomas Rogers Analysis on Article 10. Proposition 1. 2. 3. Master Samuel Heirons Abridgement of the Gospel page 157. 158. Master Stock, The Doctrine and use of Repentance, page 169. to 171. Master Paul Baynes Commentary on Ephes. 1. page 352. to 380. Doctor John Whites Way to the Church, Digressio 41. 42. Defense of his way, cap. 25. sect. 10. 15. 16. 17. Sermon at Paul's Cross, section 8. Doctor Francis White Bishop of Norwich in his Orthodox, cap. 9. page 106. 107. 108. Doctor Field of the Church, Book 1. cap. 4. Doctor Ames Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem Article 2. 3. Doctor Crakenthorpe in his Sermon of Predestination. Doctor Dove Bishop of Peterburrow in his Sermon against Universal grace, on 1. Tim. 2. 4. where he confutes Huberus. Doctor Prideaux Lectura 3. & 4. De gratia Vniuersali. Doctor Benefield De Sanctorum Perseuerantia, cap. 18. 20. Doctor Griffith Williams, his Delights of the Saints page 30. to 42. Master Elton, on Colossians 1. Edit. 2. p. 87. 88. & on Ro 8. v. 30. M. Samuel Crooke, his Guide, sect, 8. 9. 10. 12. 18. 19. Doctor Thomas Taylor, on the 32. Psalm, Epistle to the Reader. M. El • atha • Parre Grounds of Divinity, page 240. 241. Master Thomas Wilson, on Rom. 3. ver. 10. on cap. 5. ver. 15. 16. 17. on cap. 8. ver. 33. on cap. 9. ver. 16. Master Thomas Draxe, in his Worlds Resurrection, page 110. 111. Master Sweeper, in his Sermon against Universal grace. Master Humphrie Sydenham his Jacob and Esau, part 1. 2. 3. Doctor Boys his Postills 4. Sunday after Easter, pag. 317. to 320. on Saint Markes Day, page 685. 686. Master John D • wnams Sum of Divinity, lib 1. cap. 17. lib. 2. cap. 1. 2. 3. Sir Christopher Syhthorpe, his Friendly Aduertisement, &c. cap. 7. 8. together with all our Dort Divines, Article 2. 3. 4. of that Synod, in the Rain of King James. D. Dauenat Bishop of Salisbury his Expositio ad Epist. Coloss. cap. 1. ver. 5. page 45. verse 12. page 78. 80. ver. 27. page 171. 172. 173. cap. 2. ver. 3. page 266. 267. Bishop Carltons Examination of Master Montagues Appeale, cap. 2. 3. 4. Doctor Goad his Pelagius Rediuinus. Doctor Warde, his Concio ad Clerum. Doctor Featly his 2. Parallel, page 14. to 20. Learned Bishop Vsh • rs Answer to the Jesuits Challenge, page 464. to 492. Of the Religion professed by the ancient Irish, page 7. 8. Master Richard Bernard, his Rheemes against Rome, Proposition 29. page 247. 248. Master Francis Rouse, his Doctrine of King James, page 25. to 39. Doctor Sclaters Exposition on the first of the Thessa-Ionians page 300. 301. 438. to 455. on Epistle 2. cap. 1. ver. 3. page 5. 6. ver. 10. page 53. 54. cap. 2. ver. 13. page 180. to 191. Master Anthony Woottons Defense of Master Perkins, cap. of Free-will, and A Dangerous plot discovered, &c. cap. 7. 8. 20. Master Vicars, in his Pusillus Grex. Master Yates in his Ibis ad Caesarem, part. 2. cap. 7 page 157, &c. Master William Pemble, in his Vinditiae Gratiae. page 54. to 112. where this point is largely and excellently discussed. Master Henry Burton his Plea to an Appeale, page 65. to 90. and Truth triumphing over Trent, cap. 17. to which I might add all those learned Authors of our Church, who have copiously discussed the point of Free-will, with all the Authors in the three former Positions, and my own Perpetuitie of a Regenerate man's estate, page 9. to 38. All these, I say, do fully testify, that there is no such Free-will, or universal and sufficient grace derived unto all men, by which they may repent, believe, and be saved if they will themselves.

Now because this universal Grace, or Free-will in man, is the only center upon which the whole fabric of Arminianism is erected; by the undermining of which alone, the whole superstruction, both of Pelagianism, Popery, Arminianism, and Libertinism, are utterly subverted, I will briefly oppugn it with these several atheistical, blasphemous, absurd, and dangerous consequences, which will necessarily result and issue from it; and those conditional and secondary Decrees of Predestination which are built upon it.

[ 1] First, it overturns the everlasting and irreuersible Decrees of Election and Reprobation: for if every man may believe, repent, and be saved if he will himself, then it inevitably follows, that there is no eternal nor immutable Decree of Predestination either way: whence our Arminians to support this rotten Idol of Free-will, are forced to maintain a conditional, mutable, general, and confused Decree of Predestination only; which in truth is no Decree: not absolute, immutable, and particular: by which they utterly abolish the whole Decree, and Doctrine of Predestination; and then mark the consequence: If no Predestination, no vocation, no justification, no faith, no salvation; Predestination being the original fountain of all these, and the main foundation both of grace and glory, as the Scriptures, and all Writers teach us.

[ 2] Secondly, it makes the fickle, wavering, and unconstant will of man, the very basis and groundwork of all God's immutable, and eternal Decrees concerning man: where as God only works and orders all things, (as the Scriptures certify us) according to the counsel of his own will, not according to the bent and inclination of our wills: by which it subordinates God to man, and subjects his eternal purposes and unalterable Decrees, to sundry mutabilities, to his dishonor and our great discomfort.

Thirdly, it makes man an independent creature, and [ 3] exempts him wholly from the disposing and over-ruling providence of his great Creator: it makes the great controwler of the world, a bare spectator, not an orderer or disposer of human actions: it causeth God with all his counsels and designs, to dance attendance upon the will of man, not man to depend upon the sovereign will and pleasure of his God, (for whose only will and pleasure he was at first created, ) as if God were made for man, not man for God.

Fourthly, it constitutes an absolute and independent [ 4] being and will in man, preexistent to the eternal will of God, not only in nature, but in time: For if God's foresight and everlasting Decrees, have their resultancie from the will of man, as the sampler hath from the coppy, the picture from the body, the structure from the plat-form, or me • s after-determinations, from antecedent events, as our Arminians teach us: then man's will must not only necessitate, and in some sort praedetermine the most free and absolute purposes of God, (which by this means take their rise and being from the creature, as if God were insufficient, not all-complete, and absolute in himself:) but it must likewise have a self-dependence or praeexistence to them, both in time and nature: which were nothing else, but to defy the will of man, in giving it an eternal being, both in and from it self, exempted from any antecedent or fore-ordaining will of God.

Fifthly, it dethrones and pulls God out of heaven, in [ 5] depriving him, not only of his all-disposing providence in over-swaying and controling the very wills and works of men: but likewise of his absolute sovereignty and power over all his creatures to dispose of them at his own free-will. Had man a freedom or universal grace implanted in him, to convert, to save, or damn himself at his pleasure: God's absolute supremacy over him, • his liberty to save, or not to save him, would then be quite abolished: then men might save themselves when God would damn them, yea, damn themselves when God would save them: an atheistical and blasphemous consequent, which defeates God's power and supremacy in the ordering and disposal of his creatures, both at once.

[ 6] Sixthly, it spoils the Lord of the very glory, praise, and freedom of his grace, for if every man may thus convert and save himself; those only being saved, who take care to save themselves, by a general strength and common grace derived aequally upon all men; what praise, what love, or thanks is due to God, for any special favor? man then must thank himself, not God, who doth no further save him then he saves himself.

[ 7] Seventhly, it quite destroys and utterly abolisheth the very essence and nature of the grace of God; and that in these respects: First, in that it communicates it in a like indifferency unto all men, when as grace is such a special favor as is peculiar to some few: hence Election, Vocation, Adoption, Justification, Sanctification, Love, Faith, Hope, Repentance, Conversion; hence worldly honors, favors, and praeferments, are styled grace, because they are conferred upon few, not cast promiscuously upon all: Secondly, in that it makes grace, yea, heaven and salvation, a mere purchase of our own, not an absolute free gift of God, without any relation to, or dependency on our selves; and so no grace at all. Thirdly, it makes it subordinate and subseruient to our wills, which are wholly subject to it • Scepter; & so accounts it for a slave, where as it is, a Lord a King, and Monarch for to sway our hearts. Fourthly, in confining the taking or rejecting of it to times and seasons of our own, when as it breatheth when and where it listeth. Fifthly, in subjecting it to alterations and changes at our pleasure, where as it is immouable, and immutable in it self.

Eighthly, it susspends the efficacy, fruit and application [ 8] of Christ's death, the power of God's ordinances, the graces, and working of his Spirit, (and so our whole salvation) on our selves alone, and so gives us a power to euacuate, or make them efficacious to us, at our pleasures: which overthrows the whole frame and order of the Scriptures, which ascribe and yield up all to God, leaving nothing in, or to our selves.

Ninthly, It falsifies and overthrows the whole contents [ 9] and series of the Scripture, which informs us: that we are wholly dead in sins and trespasses, and so unable for to move or help our selves, unless God quicken us by his grace: that without Christ's special assistance we are, we can do nothing: that God must work in us both the will and the deed of his good pleasure: that he must work all our works both in us and for us: that all our sufficiency proceeds from him: that we cannot come unto Christ, except his Father who hath sent him draw us: that he only makes us to differ from others: that by his grace only we are what we are: and that all our hearts & ways are in his hands, to turn them which way soever it pleaseth him: and a thousand such like places to this purpose.

Tenthly, it puts all mankind into as good (if not a better) [ 10] estate and condition since the fall, as Adam had before it: since Adam only had a possibility given unto him, ( posse non peccare ) not to sin or fall, unless he listed; and we (if this prove truth) have all a possibility or power given us, to be saved, not damned, if we will our selves: and then what great, what real difference between Adams first estate & ours now? and if no difference, what hurt, what loss by Adams fall?

Eleventhly, it makes both faith, repentance, vocation, [ 11] adoption, election, justification, glorification, and all other graces, within the command and limits of our own free power, and so not the mere donations or free gifts of God, or issues of his Spirit, as the Scriptures style them.

[ 12] Twelftly, it frustrates all our prayers and thanksgivings, and makes them merely • ugatory: for in vain do we implore that from another, which issues from ourselves: in vain do we give thanks unto another, for that we have received from our selves alone, without his special favor or assistance. If then conversion, faith, repentance, and salvation, are at our our own devotion or command, our thanks, our prayers for them are but vain.

[ 13] Thirteenthly, it gives men cause, tobost and glory in themselves alone, ( which overthrows the end and freedom of God's grace:) and not to give the praise, and glory of their whole conversion, and salvation unto God, to whom alone it doth belong.

[ 14] Fourteenthly, it opens an inreparable gap, to sundry inevitable inconveniences: First, to all licentiousness and profaneness whatsoever: since men (as most profane ones lay this for their ground,) may repent and be saved after all their wickedness, both if, and when they will: Secondly, to all desperate achievements and audacious vilanies whatsoever: he that hath yet no truth of grace within him, to restrain him from forecasting sin, will quickly run into any desperate attempt, or action whatsoever, upon this false praesumption; that he may presently of himself repent, and so be saved after all his sins: Thirdly, to prochrastinate repentance to the last, and wholly to neglect the means of grace, and all true Christian duties for the present. What is the chief and primary ground of the common neglect of means & works of grace, of most men's delaying amendment to their latter ends, but only this unhappy delusion: that they may undoubtedly believe, repent, convert, and be saved when they will themselves: he therefore that maintains this Doctrine of Free-will, or universal and sufficient grace, lets loose the rains to all profaneness, wickedness, securiti • , and licentiousness, that the hearts of men can harbor.

Fifteenthly, it placeth all men in an equal balance and [ 15] suitable condition: it makes the Pagan and the Christian; the godly and ungodly; the Elect and Reprobate, all alike, since all of them may be aequally saved, aequally damned if they will: Now what can be more derogatory to God's especial and peculiar love; more discomfortable unto all good Christians; more advantageous unto Satanmore grateful unto all licentious persons; or more pernicious to mankind it self; then thus to pluck up all the stakes and bounds of God's eternal, fore-limiting, and irremouable Decrees? to throw down all the hedges and enclosures of his more special love? to lay them common unto all without distinction? and so to place the salvation, estates, and spiritual conditions of all men in an aequipage, which God himself and all Divines, have rancked into different orders.

Sixteenthly, it not only takes away repentance and [ 16] salvation it self: but even the very possibility and hopes of all repentance and salvation, from the sons of men. For if our conversion salvation, grace, and glory, are thus suspended on our most impotent, depraved, unconstant, and perfidious wills, what man can once be saved? If it were past the power of our father Adam in his first and purest state, to keep himself from falling, or his soul from ruin, though he had a power not to sin: needs then must it be impossible for any of the weak depraved progeny of Adam (who have a necessity of sinning since his fall ) by any general grace or power of their own, to raise, convert, to keep, or save themselves from endless condemnation, into which they could not choose but fall had they no supporter but themselves. Were our graces, portions, salvation, and inheritances in the tu •• lage or wardship of our wills alone, what flesh, what person could be saved? Her then that thinks himself secure in his own possession, let him embrace this Free-will Doctrine, and so perish with it: but let all who would be sure of their own salvation (as it is only, always sure in God's custody ) quite renounce it, since the undoubted ship wrack and damnation of mankind, is the vneuitable consequence, the only benefit that attends it.

[ 17] Seuenteenthly, it inevitably deprives all Infants of salvation, who want both knowledge to discern, and will for to desire it, because they know not what it means.

[ 18] Eighteenthly, it reuiues the old Pelagian Tenent, that a man may live, and keep himself without sin: For if men have such an ability of will, or grace, as to convert or change their hearts, whiles they are held captives under sin and Satan's bondage, which is the greater: much more being thus rescued from the power of sin, may they keep themselves unspotted from it, which is in truth the less: if men may master sin in its greatest strength, much more may they totally suppress it being wounded.

[ 19] Nineteenthly, it makes grace more ample then the Decree of God's Election, or the inward, or outward means of grace: God hath not actually Decreed to save or call all men alike; neither hath he tendered, or purposed to offer effectual or soul-saving means of grace to all men: this Scripture, this experience witness; and if it were not so, I see no reason but all men should be saved, all converted, since God's Decrees are true, and never fall to ground for want of execution: Either therefore we must admit an universal Election of all men unto life, (a dream, an heresy long since exploded by all reformed Churches,) or disclaim this strange Chymera of universal grace, a monster in Divinity: else we must make grace more ample then God's Decree of grace, and so the effect more general then its cause, which were a gross absurdity.

[ 20] Twentiethly, it makes universal or sufficient grace, which is no true saving grace, the genetrix or parent of special, saving, and effectual grace, which differs toto genere from it; as an unnatural and strange production, as togather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles: Such as the mother is, such is the daughter, such as the cause is, such is the effect; such as the tree is, such is the fruit; that which is borne of the flesh is flesh, and that only is spirit which is borne of the spirit: Either then this universal grace is saving grace, (which cannot be, for then all men should be saved by it, yea, grace it self against all rules of reason, should be the cause and author of it self), or else it cannot be the author or procurer of true saving grace which so far differs from it both in kind, and eminency.

Furthermore, it baptizeth man's natural freedom with the name of grace: For what else is universal grace, but the [ 21] the very natural abilities of man's will: If it be grace in truth as well as in name, how then is it derived unto all men in the same Geometrical proportion or degree; when as all other graces are peculiar unto some, and vnaequally distributed unto most that have them? There is not a text in Scripture, not a Pelagian or Arminian now in nature, that can show me either warrant or example of any one saving or common grace, that was ever yet in the same aequality conferred upon all men; and shall we begin to • orge such graces now? But to pass on further, and to search into the very depth and bottom of this pretended grace. I would demand of any Arminian this one Quaere. Whether this universal sufficient grace, (which I take to be nothing else, but a power or faculty in the will to regenerate and transform the soul, or to embrace Christ Jesus, and apply his merits when the Gospel offers them) be a native and inherent faculty of the will? or only an aduentitious, acquisite, or infused quality, not borne, not produced with it? If the former only; it is verily then no grace but nature: if the latter, then it must either be an acquisite, deriuatiue, or an infused quality. If acquisite either by art, or industry of our own; then it can be neither universal, nor sufficient, it being proportionably, originally on none; acquisitely in few, since few men seek it, fewer purchase it: If deriuatiue: not from our Parents, not from Adam; for then it were not grace, but nature: not from Christ or from his Spirit, for they derive grace only to their living and believing members, not generally unto all: & that by means, which are neither common nor effectual unto all: not immediately: If by infusion only without means, I pray what Scripture proves it? if any, then show it: if none, let none believe it; But if it be thus generally infused, then tell me how or when: whether with the soul, or after it? whether in the embrio, infancy, child-hood, youth, or riper age of men? If with it, then certainly as a native faculty conjoined with the soul, vndistinct from that whereby it wills all common civil things: and so a natural power, not a grace: If after it, I dare presume no prying Arminian can tell me, how, or when. If in riper years, in youth, or in child-hood only: then infants want it who depart this life, and so it is not universal: If in the very womb or infancy of all men, then God bestows it when and where it is but useless, and so doth things in vain: since infants (especially those that die before discretion) cannot tell how to act it, or to embrace salvation by it: If in neither of all these seasons, then not at all, and so there is no such grace; all which being laid together, will evidently discover this Pelagian, Popish, and Arminian grace, to be in truth mere nature, and so unable of it self to change men's hearts, to engender saving grace, or purchase, or embrace salvation, as our Arminians, Papists, and Pelagians dream.

[ 22] Again, It gives a possibility to all Infidels and Pagans, who never heard of Christ, to be effectually saved without Christ Jesus, or those means of grace which lead and bring men to him: For if Heathens who want the knowledge of Christ and the Scriptures through their invincible ignorance, which they could not remedy, may yet be saved if they will themselves: then it must needs be without the help or assistance of the Gospel, without faith, without Christ himself, for these they had not, these they could not have, and then Christ is dead in vain, yea Faith and Scriptures are mere superfluous trifles, since men may well be save though they want them: a most atheistical and blasphemous consequent.

Moreover, It fathames the very bottomless depths, [ 23] it enucleates the inextricable, abstruce, and incompraehensible mysteries of God's eternal Decrees, which put St. Paul unto his Non-plus, and struck him with such an amazing admiration, as forced him to cry out: O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God: how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out. It renders an apparent cause besides the absolute and disposing will of God, why one man is predestinated to salvation, not another: and so vnvailes and nullifies the sublimest, the supremest mystery of Divinity which all ages have hitherto adored with highest, tacit and dreadful admira • ion, since no man can too curiously, dive into it, without the hazard of a fatal praecipice.

Lastly, it would make the most of all our Arminian sticklers, (who are generally the very proudest, the sloathfullest, the most ambitious, envious, lascivious, voluptuous and profanest of our Clergy, making no conscience for to feed their flocks, with which they are seldom resident, but when some tithes or gains come in) exceeding obstinate and graceless sinners: For if they have this power to convert, repent, and leave their sins (as they praetend they have:) why are their actions and their lives so vicious? Is it for want of power to reform? that contradicts their Doctrine, and traps them in a lie: Is it for want of will alone, (as certainly it must be, if their position prove but true?) this makes them desperate, and contemptuous sinners, yea, open rebels against God, unfit to take his word or name within their lips, in that they hate to be reformed when they have strength and power to reform themselves: either therefore let them now reform their lives, or proclaim themselves professed rebels to their God, or else renounce this Free-will Error, which will ineuitablie make them such.

To Wind up all in brief, if there be such a freedom of will, or sufficiency of grace imparted unto all men, whereby they may be saved if they will, why then were not the means of grace and salvation from the very Creation to this present, alike imparted unto all, without which it was impossible for them to be saved? yea, why then are not all, or most men saved? Is it because they will not; or because they cannot save, convert, or help themselves? If the latter of these two, you then yield up the cause; if the former only, because they will not: I answer, there is no man whatsoever, so desperately prodigal of his own soul, or so desirous of damnation, but he unfeignedly desires to be saved, and would certainly save himself at last, if his power to effect it, were equal to his will: therefore it is not want of will, but power, that berieues them of salvation: If you believe not this, believe the truth him self, who speaks it: many (saith he) shall strive to enter and shall not be able: But admit it rests thus merely in men's wills: from whence then springs this inaequalitie in their wills, that one man is thus unwilling to be saved, when as another wills it? Is it because one man's will is naturally more corrupted and depraved then another's? this were to deny either the universality or the aequality of original corruption, which is aequally derived unto all men in the self-same measure, without any difference of degrees. Is it because there is an insufficiency or inaequality in the grace you speak of, to check and conquer the obstinacy, the perverseness of men's wills? then there is no such sufficient universal grace as you praetend, since it is not sufficient or alike in all: Certainly if men's wills were equal, and their graces equal, their desire, their accomplishment of eternal happiness and salvation, (which is essential & connatural to the wills of men) would be proportionable, since the self-same things in the same degrees, admit no aequalitie in their genuine and native operations: And if so, then all men by this doctrine should be saved, and so God's eternal Justice, Hell, and Devils were in vain. But of this point enough if not too much, since I intend not here to argue it, but to prove it, the undoubted Doctrine of our English Church, which I have already done.

The fifth of our Anti-Arminian Theses, touching the [ 5] peculiar intention, efficacy, virtue, and application of Christ's death to the Elect alone, though perchance the price & merit of it were absolutely in it self, (though it be not relatiuely or intendedly,) sufficient to redeem and save even all mankind, had God been pleased to extend it to them, as well as to the Elect: is warranted and proved by our 2. 15. 17. 18. 29. and 31. Articles: by the 1. 3. 4. 7. and 8. Articles of Lambeth: by the 13. 14. 15. 16. 31. and 32. Articles of Ireland: by the Book of Common prayer: Position 3. see here page 20. 21. by the Homilies: by the Catechism of Edward the sixth, by the Quaestions and Answers concerning Predestination: figures (5) and by the Synod of Dort, Article 2. 3.

The several witnesses which aver it under their hands and seals are Master William Tyndale, Parable of the wicked Mammon, page 70. 72. 73. 79. 80. Col. 2. The Obedience of a Christian man, page 130. 131. Prologue to the Exposition upon the 5. 6. and 7. of Matthew, page 185. Col. 1. An Answer to sir Thomas Moors Dialogue, page 257. 292. An Answer to Master Moors 3. book, page 307. Answer to his 4. book, cap. 11. page 333. A Pathway into the holy Scriptures, page 380. 382. Exposition on the first Epistle of John, cap. 2. page 394. 401. A Treatise upon Signs and Sacraments, page 443. Master John Friths Answer unto Rastals Dialogue, page 10. 14. 22. An Answer unto sir Thomas Moore, page 48. 49. Answer to Rastals 3. chapter, page 71. A Declaration of Baptism, page 93. The mind of Saint Paul on the 10. chapter of the 1. of the Corinthians, page 161. Doctor Barnos What the Church is, page 243. to 247. That Free-will of her own strength can do nothing but sin, page 278. in the days of King Henry the VIII. Master Hugh Latimer Bishop of Worcester in his Sermons, fol. 125. 126. 164. 165. 178. 208. 215. 224. 270. 288. 295. 297. b. (a pertinent and full place) 299. 308. 323. 326. 327. Stephen Garret, The Sum of the holy Scripture, cap. 7. Peter Matyr, Locorum Communium Classis 3. cap. 1. sect. 44. 45. 46. 47. Commentar. in Romanos cap. 5. page 266. to 274. 328. 329. cap. 9. page 708. 726. to 730. cap. 11. page 866. Master Martin Bucer, Comment. on Rom. 5. and 11. and on John 10. page 17. Bishop Hooper Epistle to the Reader before this Declaration on the 10. Commandments, a place which some do wrest to the contrary conclusion: but let all Episcopal mistakers of this godly Bishop, read his Declaration on the 8. Commandment fol. 75. 76. and then they must either disclaim this Author, or subscribe to our Conclusion. Master Thomas Beacon, his Sick man's salve page 235. to 259. 273. 274. to 279. 413. 414. 425. 426. John Carelesse Martyr, a dear friend of Bishop Latimers, Book of Marryrs, page 1742. Col. 2. number, 50. Master John Fox, his first Sermon at Paul's Cross, fol. 12. Master Richard Caundish his Image of Nature and grace, cap. 7. 8. 10. Reverend Dean Nowels Catechism on the Creed, part 1. 2. 3. Master John Veron his Treatise of Predestination, fol. 60. to 112. and his Apology for the same, fol. 25. to the end. Master Palfryman Treatise of heavenly Philophie, Epistle Dedicatorie, and lib. 1. cap. 7. 8. Master James Price his Fan of the faithful, cap. 1. to 10. where this point is largely debated. Master Edward Deering Lecture 9. and 27. on the Hebrews. Master Robert Hutton his Sum of Divinity, of the Church, and of life everlasting. Master Thomas Sparkes his Comfortable Treatise for a troubled Conscience, the 4. first leaves. Master John Daniel his Excellent Comfort against Calamitie, cap. 5. 6. 7. 8. Doctor Fulke and Master Cartwright, Notes on the Rhemish Testament, on 1. Tim. 2. 4. sect. 3. 4. on cap. 3. sect. 10. and in the places fore-quoted in the former Conclusion. Master John Anwicke, Meditation on God's Monarchy and the Devils Kingdom, cap. 6. 7. 10. 11. Master William Burton in his Sermon of of the Churches love. Master Arthur Gurney his Fruitful Dialogue between Reason and Religion, page 40. 45. Godly Bishop Babington, An Exposition of the Catholic Faith, page 232. 239. Sermon at Paul's Cross 1591. on John 6. 37. D. Whitaker's Aduersus Gratiam vniuersalem. Lectura 1594. and Cygnea Cantio, page 14. Doctor Robert Some, Tractatus De tribus Quaest. Quae. 1. Master William Perkins, Of the Order of causes of salvation and damnation, cap. 54. Tom. 1. page 108. to 112. An Exposition on the Creed, page 293. to 299. A declaration of spiritual Disertions, page 415. Commentary on Galatians 3. 8. 22. Tom. 2. page 249. 250. A Treatise of Predestination, page 621. to 642. with all the places quoted in the former point of universal and sufficient grace, where this point is largely handled. Master John Hills Life everlasting, lib. 4. Quaest. 3. 4. 5. of the Grace of God, p. 347. to 352. Quaest. 3. 4. 5. of the love God, page 365. to 382. Master Greenham in his Treatise of Blessedness, page 207. his 14. Sermon, page 355. his 17. Sermon, page 377. Doctor Reinolds Apologia Thesium, sect. 12. to 23. Doctor Willet, in his Excellent Treatise De gratia vniuersali, in his Synopsis Papismi, page 881. to 918. Commentary on Rom. 5. Quaest. 38. 39. and Controuersie 26. Doctor Abbot Bishop of Salisbury, in his several Lectures, De veritate gratiae Christi, page 15. to 82. Master Draxe his Worlds Resurrection, page 110. 111. Master Brightman on Apocalypse 1. 5. and cap. 5. 9. 10. Doctor John Whites Way to the true Church, sect. 3. Number 3. page 6. Number 6. Page 50. 51. Defense of the Way, cap. 25. sect. 1. to the end, Sermon at Paul's Cross, sect. 8. Doctor Francis White Bishop of Norwich, his Orthodox, cap. 8. Paragraph 2. Doctor Field of the Church Book 1. cap. 4. Master Samuel Hieron Abridgement of the Gospel page 100. to 110. 121. 123. 124. Doctor Dove Bishop of Peter-burrow, in his Sermon on 1. Tim. 2. 4. where he discusseth this point largely and confutes Huberus. Master Thomas Rogers Analysis on Article 17. Proposition 4. 5. 9. Master Stokes Doctrine of Repentance, page. 167. to 173. Master Yarrow Sovereign Comfort for a troubled conscience, cap. 36. Doctor Crakentborpe. Sermon of Predestination, page 14. to 20. Master Elton on Rom. 8. 30. and on Colossians 1. page 87. 88. Doctor Ames Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem Articulus 2. Master Wilson Exposition on Romans 5. ver. 18. 19. on Rom. 6. ver. 3. 4. on cap. 9. ver. 29. 33. Doctor John Boys Postils on Christmas day, page 800. Exposition on the Creed, page 23. 24. 25. Postil. on the fourth Sunday in Lent, page 268. 269. 270. On Innocents day, page 614. to 618. Master Bifields Exposition on the Coloss. cap. 1. ver 6. page 55. ver 12. page 98. 99. ver. 14. page 108. 109. Master Samuel Crooke in his Guide sect. 4. 9. 10. 12. 18. 19. Doctor Prideaux Lectura. 3. De gratia vniuersali, Oxoniae in Comitijs Iulij 11. 1618. Doctor Benefield, De Sanctorum perseuenantia, lib 2. cap. 18. 20. Master Sweeper in his Sermon on Proverbs 12. 16. 1622. Master Humphrey Sidenham in his Jacob and Esau. Master John Downames Sum of Divinity, lib. 2. cap. 1. 2. 6. Master Elnathan Parre Grounds of Divinity, page 275. to 280. Sir Christopher Sibthorpe his Friendly admonition to the Catholics of Ireland, cap. 7. 8. Doctor Thomas Tailors Praeface to the Reader in his Treatise on Psal. 32. Master Paul Baines Commentary on Ephesians 1. page 114. 115. Doctor Griffith Willams his Delights of the Saints, page 30. to 42. to whom I might add all our Dort Divines, in the Rain of our learned King James. Reuerēd Bishop Carltons Examination of Master Montague's Appeale, cap. 3. 4. 9. Learned Doctor Dauenate Bishop of Salisbury, Expositio in Epist. Pauli ad Colossenses, cap. 1. ver. 12. page 78. 79. ver. 14. page 89. to 93. ver. 18. page 116. to 120. ver. 27. page 172. 173. ver. 28. page 182. 183. D. Ward his Suffragium Brittannorum, Artic. 2. and Concio ad Clerum. Doctor Goad, and D. Feately, in their Pelagius Rediuinus D. William Sclater Exposition, on the first Epistle of the Thessalonians, cap. 1. ver. 10. page 92. to 97. cap. 5. ver. 9. 10. page 447. to 454. ver. 24. page 566. to 570. On Epistle 2. cap. 1. ver. 10. page 53. 54. Master Vicars in his Pusillus Grex. Master Henry Scudder his Christians daily Walk, cap. 15. Master William Pemble his Vindiciae gratiae, page 53. to 158. Master Henry Burtons Answer to an Appeale, page 64 &c. Truth triumphing over Trent, cap. 17. and in his Viols, page 117. to 129. Master Wotton in his Dangerous Plot Discouered, cap. 20. Master Yates in his Ibis ad Caesarem, part. 1. cap. 3. 4. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. part. 2. cap. 1. page 34. &c. cap. 2. 7. With mine own Perpetuitie of a Regenerate man's estate, page 28. 29. All these concurrent witnesses unanimously suffragate to this our Anti-Arminian Conclusion, approving, justifying, & defending it as the undoubted truth, and the resolved Doctrine of our Church, against which no Orthoxe Writer of our own hath hitherto concluded.

Now where as the Pelagians and Semi-Pelagians, in St. Augustine's, Hilaries, Prospers, and Orosius days, and our Papists, Pseudo-Lutherans, Anabaptists, Socinians, and Arminians since, object against this Conclusion: that Christ tasted death for all men, and the like. These Authors (who reply again, that Christ died, and prayed only for his Sheep, his Church, his Elect, his seed, his rēnant, his people, his Israel, his Zion, his children, his menbers, Believes, those that obey and fear him, & for many, ) do shape these general Answers to those Scriptures: First that Christ died for all men sufficiently, that is, in regard of the infinite merit of his death, considered absolutely in itself alone, which might if God had pleased, sufficiently have redeemed all men: not actually, effectually, or meritoriously, in regard of the real intention, benefit, and application of his death, which pertains not unto all: Secondly, indefinitely; that is, for all sorts, all Nations, sexes, ages, qualities, callings and conditions of men whatsoever: for some of all kinds; not for all of every kind: Thirdly, Pr omnibus electis & dilectis; for all, and every of his Elect, his Sheep, his Church, of all ages, Nations, and conditions; not for the whole latitude of all mankind, whom he never actually Praedestinated to salvation: Fourthly, for all true believers, who by the work and power of the Spirit, are really enabled to lay hold on Christ, by a true and lively faith; which faith is incommunicable unto Reprobates; peculiar to the Elect, who only do enjoy it. Fifthly, for all who are saved; or whom God will have saved: there being no other means, no other name, by which men may or can be saved, but Jesus Christ alone, Sixthly, for all, voluntate signi, in respect of the external tender of the benefits of Christ's passion in the Gospel unto all: not voluntate beneplaciti, in regard of his eternal purpose, designing, or the inward efficacy of his Spirit, applying, the merits of his death to all.

Add we to these replies, some other of our own. First, that Christ Jesus truly died for all men, in regard of that assumed common humanity in which he suffered, which extends it self indifferently unto all: not in respect of the essicacious Redemption which he merited, by his suffering, which is impropriated to the Elect alone: Secondly, Christ died indefinitely for all men, in as much as no particular men whiles they live on earth can truly say, that they are actually excluded from the benefits of his death: not because they are all particularly redeemed by his death. Thirdly, that he died for all men, that is, for his firstborn, for the Seed of Abraham, the Children of the promise, and the better part of men, who oft times denominate the whole, especially in the visible Church, where all are frequently styled Saints, believers, and the like, because some are such: not for the tares, the chaff, the goats, the thorns, the stones, the dross, the sons of Belial, and perdition, the dogs, the swine, the beasts, or the unclean, or worser part, whom God accounts no members of the mystical body of the Catholic Church, for which Christ only died, & so reputes them as beasts, as the most infamous, and vilest creatures, not as men. Fourthly, that he died corporally for all, in regard of the enlargement of some external privileges; as the universal preaching of the Gospel, the outward administration of the Sacraments, with the participation of those ordinary blessings of peace and plenty, the common endouments of the Spirit, restraining grace, some competent knowledge of God, of Christ, and of the mysteries of godliness: probability and good hopes of salvation, some relish of the Word of life, and of the powers of the world to come, which usually accompany them; before peculiar to the Jews alone, but since Christ's death, made common unto all men, (to which I may add the general resurrection of all, both good & bad, a real fruit & consequent of Christ's death,) not spiritually, in regard of those peculiar & aeternal favors of Redemption, Justification, Sanctification and Salvation, the portion, the inheritance of the Elect alone, which no reprobate either can, or shall enjoy. Fifthly, that he died for almen, in that by his death he hath purchased an absolute sovereignty and dominion over all, to order, rule, and guide them at his pleasure, and to pass sentence on them all at last according to their works: not because he hath procured an absolute enfranchisement from hell and death, or praepared an eternal Crown of glory for them all; which belongs to none but those who love him, and long for his appearance. These several answers warranted by Scriptures, Fathers, and the fore-quoted Authors, will reconcile all seeming repugnancies of Scripture, and answer all objections against this fifth Conclusion.

Before I pass over this Conclusion, I must needs take off one principal daring objection, with which our Arminians do encounter, it in this Syllogisticall dispute.

That which every man is peremptorily bound to believe, must needs be true; for God binds no man to believe a lie, because he is truth itself.

But every man, as well the reprobate as the elect, is peremptorily bound to believe, that Christ Jesus died effectually for his sins; since every man is obliged to believe in Christ, under pain of eternal damnation. John, 6. 29. 1. John 3. 23. Mark 16. 16. John 3. 16. 17. 18.

Therefore that Christ died effectually for all, and every man's sins, must needs be true.

To this I answer, first, that the Major is not infallible, unless it be with this limitation: everything which men are commanded to believe, is true; not absolutely in any sense, but only in that relative, qualified, and peculiar sense in which it is to be believed: for one and the selfsame proposition may be both true, and false in different respects: For instance. These two propositions ( God will have all men to be saved: Christ Jesus tasted death for all men; are true, sensu diuise: in an abstracted; not sensu composite, in a relative or compounded sense: true in the proposition, false in the application, unless we qualify, or restrain their generality, with the fore-mentioned modifications, or their inseparably annexed conditions of faith and repentance, without which God will [ 2] have no man to be saved. Secondly, the Minor in its general [ 1] & absolute sense, is merely false: First, because there are millions of men, (as Idiots, Lunatiques, Infants, Pagans, by an invincible, necessitated, and unavoidable ignorance) who are not peremptorily bound to believe, that Christ Jesus died effectually for their sins, neither is infidelity a damnable sin in them, (Arminians themselves confessing it, who desperately affirm, that Pagans, or Infidels may be saved) because there was an absolute impossibility in them to believe, by reason of the incapability of the means in the one, and the inevitable want of means in the other. Secondly, because all those to whom the Gospel is preached (who are scarce the tithe of all the world) are not bound to believe, that Christ died effectually for their sins in an absolute sense, as is objected: but only in a qualified, limited and restrained, to wit, if God enable them by his grace, to repent and believe: else they are absolutely to believe, that Christ Jesus died not thus for them, and that they shall be damned, if they are not thus qualified: The only absolute proposition then to be believed and rested upon by all men, is not this general or irrestrained Conclusion: Christ Jesus died actually or absolutely for all and every man whatsoever, (the ground of libertinism, prochrastination, and all profaneness among Christians,) but this; Christ Jesus died effectually for all true paenitent and believing sinners, who lay hold upon his merits: (which cuts off all hopes of heaven from prochrastinating and vnrepenting sinners: who obstinaly proceed in sinful curses,) and then this Conclusion: Ergo, he died effectually for all and every man's sins whatsoever, is but a mere inconsequent. Thirdly, [ 3] because the Scriptures enjoin no reprobate or wicked man to believe at first, that Christ died effectually for his sins: but only, to repent and believe in Christ, that so his sins may be done away: The Scriptures indeed do bind all faithful and relenting siners to believe, e that their sins are actually forgiven, and effectually purged by the death of Christ: but for those who are yet out of Christ, there is no such precept; they must first be really engraffed into Christ, & then believe it: not first believe it: & then be i • graffed, else they should believe a lie, in believing their sins are actually purged, ere they are, because a man must be first in Christ before his iniquities can be washed away by his soul-cleansing blood. Fourthly, admit that every man [ 4] were obliged to believe that Christ died effectually for his sins: yet it follows not, that therefore Christ died effectually for all men. First, because every man may be [ 1] bound to believe particularly for himself, (because he knoweth nothing to the contrary,) that Christ died for his sins, and yet it follows not, that therefore he must believe that he died effectually for all men's sins: It is no good consequent to say, that every man must paticularly believe that he is elected: Therefore he must of necessity believe that every man is elected: or that every man must believe that he shall be saved, therefore, that all and every man shall be saved. It follows not: that because every man is bound to believe that himself, or any other particular man (whose case he cannot know nor yet determine) are no reprobates; therefore there are no reprobates in the world. This kind of argument from every individual to the speecies will not hold: This then is but a mere nonsequitur, every particular man must believe that Christ died effectually for himself: Ergo he died thus for all men: this is the only force of the present argument in which our Arminians vaunt and triumph; therefore it is but vain, absurd [ 2] & nugatory. Secondly, because the Scriptures, (the revealed will of God) oblige men to believe such things, as God never purposed nor intended to accomplish in his secret will, in that way and course as they believe them: Abraham was bound to believe ( yea and he did believe it ) that God did really intend the sacrificing of his dearest Isaac, because he actually enjoined him to do it, yet God intended not the unnatural shedding of Isaac's blood, but the admirable probate of Abraham's faith: The Ninevites were bound to believe, and they did believe, that peremptory Praediction of the Prophet Jonah: yet forty days and Nineveh shall be destroyed: yet God intended their repentance only, not their ruin. Our Arminians (if their Doctrine be true, and their prayers faithful,) are necessarily obliged to believe, that God will have mercy on all men whatsoever, because they pray to God, to have mercy upon all men, in the distributive and largest sense; yet God intendeth not to have mercy, neither hath he mercy upon all without exception: So we may be bound to believe, that Christ Jesus died effectually for all men whatsoever, if there be any one such text of Scripture which commands us to believe it: (as there is not,) because the Scripture doth record it: yet God may not intend the effectual application of his death to all men, no more then in those parallel cases: Neither will this consequence necessarily follow: that we then believe a lie; or that God's secret will, is contradictory to his revealed: First, because [ 1] the revealed, not the vayled will of God, which we cannot dive particularly into;) is the sole rule of our obedience, and the only object of our faith, so that in believing it, we neither falsefy God's open, nor cross his secret will, nor yet deceive our selves in believing of a lie. Secondly, because [ 2] his revealed will, is but subordinate or subseruient, (not contrary, nor adverse) to his secret will which it doth still accomplish, and with which it doth all times cooperate, as diverse from it, yet not repugnant to it. God brings, men bring their secret ends and purposes to pass, by seeming contradictory means which seem to thwart or vary from their purposes, yet there is a sweet concordancy & no repugnancy between their ends, their means, their purposes, and their method to accomplish them, because the one is wholly subordinate to the other, and aims at their accomplishment. The wheels in a clock, the spheeres in heaven, the water and the mill, have contrary motions, yet they concur and sweetly accord in the same effect, without any contrariety: The strings of an Instrument, voices in a Choir, have different sounds, yet they make up one pleasant and harmonious consort: the stones in a building, the rooms in an house, the members of a haeterogenious body, are discrepant and various in themselves; yet they all accord & meet in one intiretie So the secret and revealed will of God, if we sunder, or disioine them, may seem to jar and contradict themselves: but if we consider the one as subordinate to the other, and so link them both together, we shall find them sweetly clasping and kissing each the other, without the least dissent, the one of them effecting and fulfilling the designs and purposes of the other without any clash or jar: which answers those Arminian cau • ls to the full, which say we set God's wills at variance by our doctrines. And thus much for our fist Conclusion.

[ 6] The sixth of our praecedent Anti-Arminian Tenants' touching the total and final resistance of God's grace in the Elect, in the very Act of their Conversion, is fully ratified and confirmed by our 10. and 17. Articles: by the 8. Article of Lambeth: by the 13. 14. 15. 16. 32. and 33. Articles of Ireland: by the Book of Common prayer: Position 1. and 2. by the Homilies, the Chatechisme of Edward the 6. with the Questions and Answers of Predestination. Figures, (6) and the Synod of Dort, Article 3. 4.

The particular and punctual witnesses of this truth, now follow, to wit, Master William Tyndale, Prologue on the Romans: page 48. Col. 2. 8. 0. Col. 2. Preface to the obedience of a Christian man: page 99. An Answer to Master Moors Dialogue. page 259. 260. 266. A pathway into the holy Scriptures. page 382. Prologue to the Exposition of the first Epistle of Saint John. page 389. An Exposition on the 6. of John. page 460. Master John Frith, A Declaration of Baptism, page 90. Doctor Barns, That Freewill of her own strength can do nothing but sin. page 283. 274. 276. Master Robert Legat in his Chatechisme between Man and Wife: what the holy Catholic Church is: and between truth and the unlearned man, Wesel 1545. in the days of King Henry the 8. Learned Peter Martyr Commentary in Romans, cap. 5. page 327. 328. cap. 9. p. 690. 694. 728. 729. 732. 733. Master Martyn Bucer, Commentary on Math. 23. 37. on John 6. 37. 44. on Romans 8. 30. and on cap. 4. 5. 6. Master John Bradford his Doctrine of Predestination. Master Thomas Beacon his Sick man's salve, page. 426. in King Edwards Rain. Master John Veron his Treatise of Predestination, and Apology for the same. Master Thomas Palfryman, Treatise of heavenly Philosophy, cap. 7. 8. Master James Price his Fan of the Faithful, cap. 12. Master Edward Deering on the Heb. Lect. 9. 10. 14. Master Anthony Anderson, Sermon of sure comfort. p. 23. to 27. Master Thomas Sparkes Comfortable Treatise for a troubled conscience, the 4. first leaves. Bartimaeus Andreas Sermon 2. on the Canticles, p. 64. to 70. Master John Daniel his excellent comfort to all Christians, cap. 4. 5. 7. Master John Anwicke Meditations on God's Monarchy and the Devils Kingdom, cap. 6. 7. 10. 11. Master William Burton, Sermon of the Churches love. Master Arthur Gurney his fruitful Dialogue between Reason and Religion, page 45. Bishop Babington Exposition on the Lord's prayer, Petition 6. page 194. 195. Sermon at Paul's Cross, on John 6. 37. part 1. and 2. Matthew Hutton Arch-Bishop of York. De Electione & Reprobatione Commentatio, p. 22. 23. 24. 36. Doctor Fulke, and Master Cartwright, Notes on Rom. 8. sect. 8. Master William Perkins, of God's grace and man's freewill, Tom. 1. page 720. &c. Commentary on Galatians 1. Tom. 2. p. 178. 179. and on cap. 6. page 374. Master John Hell his Life everlasting, Book 3. Quaest. 9. p. 273. to 277. in Queen Elizabeth's Annals: Doctor Reinolds Apologia Thesium. sect. 13. 14. 15. Doctor Willet Comment on Romans 8. Controuersie 18. and on cap. 9. ver. 19. 20. Reverend Doctor Robert Abbot Bishop of Salisbury. De veritate Gratiae Christi. Oratio. 2. Iulij 8. 1615. sect. 2. Learned Doctor Thomas Morton Bishop of Coventry and Litchfield, his Protestants Appeale. Londini 1610. lib. 2. cap. 10. sect. 4. 5. 10. 11. where he proves this to be the Doctrine not only of Protestants, but of the Learnedest Papists. Doctor Field of the Church Appendix to the 3. book, cap. 10. of Freewill. Doctor John White, Way to the Church, Digression, 41. 42. Defense of the Way, cap. 25. sect. 21. 22. Master Thomas Rogers Analysis on the 17. Article, Proposition 6. 7. Master Heiron, The Backward parts of Jehovah. Sermon 2. p. 173. Doctor Ames, Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem. Artic. 3. where this point is well discussed, and excellently proved. Doctor Pri • eaux, De Conuersionis modo Lectura 4. Master Paul Bayne Commentary on Ephesians 1. 19. p. 352. to 371. where this point is pithily proved. Master Elton on Rom. 8. v. 30. Master Thomas Wilson Exposition on Rom. 8. ve. 30. on Rom. 9. ver. 19. 20. Doctor Crakenthorpe Sermon Predestination, Doctor Boys, Postil on Saint Stephens day, page 304. on the Epistle on Simon and Jude’s day, page 767. Sir Christopher Sybthorpe his Friendly admonition to the pretended Catholics of Ireland, cap. 8. Master Samuel Crooke his Guide. sect. 18. Master John Downame Sum of Divinity. lib. 2. cap. 1. Incomparable and learned Doctor Visher, Arch-bishop of Ardmagh, Answer to the Jesuits challenge. Of Freewill page 464. &c. Master Humphsrey Sydenha • in his Jacob and Esau, with all our eminent Dort Deuines, in the reign of famous King James. Reverend Bishop Carlton Examination of Master Montague's Appeale. cap. 3. 9. 14. Learned Doctor Dauenate Bishop of Salisbury, Expositio in Epist. Pauli ad Colossenses. c. 1. ver. 12. p. 78. ver. 28. p. 182. Doctor Sclater Exposition on the 1. Epistle of the Thessalonians, cap. 4. v. 9. p. 300. 301 • cap. 5. v. 9. 10. p. 437. to 454. on Epistle 2. c. 1. ver. 13. p. 180. 187. 188. v. 14. p. 199. Doctor Ward, Suffragium Brittanorum. Artic. 3. 4. and Conci • ad Clerum, 1625. where this point is solidly proved. Doctor Goad, and Doctor Featly in their Pelagius Rediuiuus: and Doctor Featly his second Parallel of Freewill, p. 14. to 21. where this position is featly handled. Master Rouse his Doctrine of King James. p. 25. to 48. Master Wotton his Dangerous Plot discovered, cap. 7. 8. Master Williams Pemble his Vindiciae Gratiae. p. 140. to 157. where this controversy is neatly discided. Master Yates his Ibis ad Caesarem, part 2. cap. 7. p. 157. to 168. M. Henry Burton his Plea to an Appeale, p. 63. to 77. & Truth triumphing over Trent. c. 17. M. Weems his Portraiture of the image of God in man. c. 16. with my own Perpetuity. p. 100. 101. 621. in the reign of our gracious King Charles, who all give full, particular and copious testimony to this conclusion.

Certainly he who shall but seriously suruay these several Scriptures, Gen. 17. 1. I am the Almighty God. Gen. 18. 14. Is anything to hard for the Lord? 1. Chron. 29. 11. 12. Thine O Lord is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty, thine is the kingdom O Lord, and thou art exalted as head over all; Both riches and honor come of thee, and thou raignest over all, and in thine hand is power and might, and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all: 2. Chron. 20. 6. Art not thou God in Heaven, and rulest not thou over all the Kingdoms of the Heathen? and in thine hand is there not power and might, so that none is able to withstand thee? Job 9. 4. 12. 19. He is wise in heart, and mighty in strength, who hath hardened himself against him and bath prospered? Behold he taketh away • who can hinder him? who will say unto him, what dost thou? If I speak of strength, loe, he is strong. cap. 12. 13. to 25. With him is wisdom and strength, he hath counsel and understanding. Behold he breaketh down and it cannot be built: he shuteth up a man, and there can be no opening: he leadeth away Counsellers spoiled, and maketh the Judges fools: he looseth the bond of Kings, and girdeth their loyues with a girdle: he leadeth Princes away spoiled, and overthroweth the mighty: he poureth contempt upon Princes, and weakeneth the strength of the mighty: he increaseth the Nations and destroyeth them: he enlargeth the Nations and straitneth them again: he taketh away the hearts of the chief of the people of the earth, &c. cap. 23. 13. 14. But he is in one mind, who can turn him? and what his soul desireth, even that he doth: for he performeth the thing that is appointed. cap. 33. 11. 12. 13. 16. 17. He putteth my feet in the stocks, &c. I will answer thee, that God is greater then man: why dost thou strive against him, for he giveth not account of any of his matters: he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man: he keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword: cap. 37. 7. 12. He sealeth up the hand of every man that all men may know his work: It is turned round about by his counsels, that they may do whatsoever he commandeth 〈◊〉 upon the face of the world, in the earth. cap. 40. 8. 9. Wilt thou also disannul my judgments? hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him. c. 42. 2. I know that thou canst do everything, and that no thought can be withholden from thee. Psal. 33. 9. 11. He spake and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast. The counsel of the Lord standeth forever, the thought of his heart, to all generations. Psal. 47. 2. 3. The Lord most high is terrible, he is a great King over all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us, and the Nations under our feet. Psal. 115. 3. But our God is in Heaven, he hath done whatsoever he pleased. Psal. 135. 6. Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that aid • e in Heaven and in Earth. &c. Prov. 21. 1. 30. The Kings heart is in the hands of the Lord as the Rivers of water, he turneth it whether soever he will. There is no wisdom, no understanding, nor counsel against the Lord. Eccle. 9. 1. The righteous, and the wise, and their work, are in the hand of God. Isaiah 14 27. The Lord of Hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pas; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand. Isaiah 41. 10. to 29. Behold the Lord God will come with strong hand, and his arm shall rule for him: he shall feed his flock like a Shepherd, he shall gather his Lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young. Behold the Nations are as the drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold he taketh up the lles as a very little thing. All Nations before him are as nothing, and they are counted to him less then nothing and vanity It is he that sitteth on the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as Grashoppers, that stretcheth out the Heavens as a Curtain. That bringeth the Princes to nothing, and maketh the Judges of the earth as vanity: yea, they shall not be planted; yea, they shall not be sown; yea, their stock shall not take root on the earth, and he shall also blow upon them, and they shall wither, and the whirlwind shall take them away as stubble: To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be compared saith the holy one. Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created those things. That bringeth out their Hosts by number, he calleth them all by their names, by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power, not one faileth. cap. 43. 12. 13. I am God, I am he, and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who shall let it? Jeremiah 18. 6. O house of Israel; cannot I do with you as this Potter, saith the Lord? behold as the clay is in the Potters hand, so are ye in my hand, saith the Lord, &c. cap. 32. 27. Behold, I am the Lord the God of all flesh, is there anything too hard for me? cap. 49. 19. He shall come up like a Lyon from the swelling of Jordan, against the habitation of the strong: but I will suddenly make him run away from her: and who is a chosen man that I may appoint over her, for who is like me? and who will appoint me the time? Ezechi. 22. 14. Can thine heart endure, or can thine hands be strong in the days that I shall deals with thee? I the Lord have spoken it and will do it. cap. 36. 24. 25. 26. 27. I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all Countries, and will bring you again to your own Land. Then will I sprincle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your Idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh: and I will put my Laws within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments and do then. Dan. 2. 20. 21. Blessed be the name of God forever and ever for wisdom and strength are his: And he changeth the times and seasons: he removeth Kings, and setteth up Kings, &c. cap. 4. 34. 35. And I blessed the most High. and praised him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his Kingdom is from generation to generation. And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and he doth according to his will in the army of Heaven, and among the Inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him; what dost thou? cap. 5. 23. The God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified. Acts 5. 38. 39. But if this counsel be of God, ye cannot overthrow it, least happily ye be found even to fight against God. cap 6. 10. And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spake. cap. 11. 17. For as much then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God? John. 5. 21. For as the father raiseth up the dead & quickeneth them, even so the Son quickeneth whom he will. John 6. 37. 44. All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me. No man can come unto me except my Father who hath sent me draw him. Rom. 8. 28. 30. To them that are called according to his purpose. Moreover, whom he did praedestinate, them he also called: whom he called, them he justified: whom he justified, them he glorified. cap. 9. 19. 20. 21. Thou wilt say then unto me, why doth he yet complain? for who hath resisted his will? Nay but O Man, who art thou that disputest against God? shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus? hath not the Potter power over the clay, of the same lump, to make one Vessel to honor, and another to dishonor, &c. cap. 11. 7. 36. The election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded: For of him, and for him, and to him are all things. 2. Tim. 1. 9. who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, according to his own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus, before the world began. 2. Cor. 10. 4. 5. For the weapons of our warfare are mighty through God, to the pulling down of strong holds: casting down Imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth it self against the knowledge of God, and bringeth into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 1. Cor. 10. 22. Do we provoke the Lord to jealousy? are we stronger then he? Phil. 3. 21. Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working, whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself. He that shall unfeignedly meditate on all these several texts of Scripture, together with: Ephe. 1. 19. 20. That you may know, what is the exceeding greatness of his power to vsward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power: which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places. cap. 2. 1. 5. 6. And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, and hath raised us up together, and made us to sit together in heavenly places with Christ. John 5. 25. Verily, verily, I say unto you, that the hour is coming and now is, that the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear it shall live. Rom. 4. 17. God who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things that be not, as though they were. Phil. 2. 13. It is God that worketh in you both the will and the deed of his good pleasure: can never once conceit, that any of the Elect can either finally or totally resist the inward regenerating and renewing grace of God's spirit in the work and Act of their conversion, in which they are merely passive. The conversion of a soul to God, is a new creation: it is wrought, not by bare alluring objects, or reasons praesented to the understanding, as Arminians dream: but by the Almighty power of God: by the self same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead: by the effectual and mighty power of the holy Ghost: and by the sovereign power and authority of Christ himself: and can any elected persons heart be found so stupendiously obdurate, as to withstand the whole shock and power of the Trinity, when they come with a resolution to convert and change it, not to force it? Certainly that God, who made the hearts and wills of men at first, can change them at his pleasuro: that blessed Savior of ours, who hath power over all flesh to rule and order them at his will: who when he was here on earth, had so much sovereignty and Divinity in him as to raise the dead: to heal the sick, the blind, and lame: to allay the raging storms, the waves, and winds, at pleasure: to command the very Devils, yea, legions of Devils with authority and power, and to eiect and dispossess them, by his mere command; he that can control the very world it self, and all the creatures, both in Heaven, Earth, or Hell: can easily convert and turn the hearts of all his children in a moment ( as he hath done always hitherto, there being not one of the Elect that did ever yet withstand his inward call) without any difficulty or resistance.

If any object that of Acts 7. 51. Ye stiffnecked and of uncircumcised hearts and ears, you have always resisted the holy Ghost: with that of Mat. 23. 37. How often would I have gathered thy children, as the Hen gathereth her chicken under her wings and ye would not, which • eeme for to oppugn this Conclusion.

[ 1] To the first of these, I answer: First, that this text speaks only of the reprobate and stiffnecked Jews: of uncircumcised hearts and ears, who cannot but resist the external proffers of God's grace: not of the elect and chosen of God among the Jews, three thousand of which were converted at one Sermon. Secondly, the spirit which these Jews did here resist, was the spirit of prophesy, not of regeneration: it was the word of the holy Ghost uttered by those prophets which they slew and stoned. ver. 52. which sounded only in their ears: not the renewing and regenerating operation of God's spirit which wrought effectually in their hearts. Thirdly, this was only an external resistance of the holy Ghost in others: not an intrinsical opposition of him, or of his operations in themselves: therefore its nothing to the point in question.

[ 2] To the second, I answer: First, that Christ here speaks only of a gathering of them by the external ministry of his Prophets, and messengers which they stoned: (as the former part of the verse. O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the Prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee: how often would I have gathered, &c. with verse 34. 35. do infallibly prove:) not by the internal regenerating operation of his spirit, the only thing in question which they could not resist. Secondly, I answer, with Saint Augustine and Peter Lombard: That the meaning of these words is not: that those whom Christ would gather did resist or disobay his call: but that Heirusalems Rulers, with the Scribes and Phareses were utterly unwilling that Christ should gather those whom he did call: The sum and drift of these words is only this: I by ministry would have gathered Jerusalem, and her Sons unto me; but you Scribes and Phareses (for to them alone, not to Jerusalem was this speech directed, as the whole series of the chapter, from the 2. verse to the end, doth irrefragably witness) would not permit me: for you withstood my ministry: yea, those that I did convert and call, it was against your wills: who agreed, that of any man did confess that I was Christ, he should be thrust out of the Synagouge: This is the whole scope and substance of the place which concludes but this against us. The Scribes and Phareses did resist Christ's ministry, in hindering him from preaching to the people: Or Christ did convert men against the Phareses wills: therefore the Elect may finally & totally resist the inward working power of the Spirit in the very Act of their conversion: a gross Non-sequitur: which hurts not this conclusion. All whom Christ effectually called, when he was on earth: as Andrew, Peter, Matthew, Luke, and the rest of his Disciples, did readily leave all to follow him without the least resistance or delay: therefore all who are thus inwardly called by his grace and spirit, do so now.

For the seventh of these our Anti-Arminian conclusions, [ 7] touching the total and final perseverance of the Saints, and that true saving faith and grace, are proper yea peculiar to the Elect alone, and not communicable unto Reprobates. It is evidently warrented and proved, by our 17. Article; figure (7) by the 5. Article of Lambeth, and the 12. 13. 15. 33. and 38. Articles of Ireland: which are express and punctual in it: by the common prayer Book; the Homilies, and the Chatechismes fore-recorded, figures, (7) by Barrets Recantation. section 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. and by the Synod of Dorts Resolution: Article 5.

Add we to these by way of Testimony, the copious, unanimous, and concurrent attestation, of Master William Tyndale: Prologue on the Epistle to the Romans • page 42. Parable of the wicked Mammon. page 69. 70. 74. 75. 78. Praeface to the Obedience of a Christian man. p. 99. In the Treatise it self. p. 169. An Answer to Sir Thomas Moors Dialogue. page 257. 258. 259. 260. 261. 266. Answer to Master Moors 2. Book. cap. 3. 4. page 293 294. Answer to his 3. Book. page 307. Answer to his 4. Book. cap. 10. page 329. cap. 11. p. 330. 331. 334. to 338. A Pathway into the holy Scripture. page 384. An Exposition on the first Epistle of John. cap. 2. p. 402. c. 3. page 410. 412. cap. 5. page 423. An Exposition on the 6. of John. page 460 462. Of Master John Frith Martyr. An Answer to my Lord of Rochester. page 55. An Answer to Rastals: 3. chapter, page 71. 72. 73. A Myrrour to know thyself. page 84. Of Doctor Barns, That Faith only justifieth before God. page 235. 242. Of Master Robert Legate, his Catechism between the Husband and Wife: what the Catholic Church is: And between the unlearned man and truth, in the reign of Henry the 8. Of Peter Martyr, Commentary in Rom. 5. p. 233. 234. in cap. 8. page 533. to 558. Locorum Commu. Classis. 3. cap. 3. sect. 46. 47. Of Martin Bucer, Commentary on Mat. 7. ver. 13. cap. 16. ver. 18. cap. 24. ver. 24. in Iohannem. cap. 4. 14. cap. 6. ver. 30. to 64. cap. 10. ver. 27. 28. cap. 14. 16. 17. In Romanos 8. c. 30. to the end. Of Bishop Latimer, in his Sermons fol. 141. 142. 180. 226. 258. 312. 326. 327. 328. Of Master John Bradford, his defense of Predestination, where this point is pithily and particularly discussed: and his Letter in the book of Martyrs. page 1505. Col. 1. Of John Carelesse Martyr. Ibid. p. 1742. Of Master Thomas Beacon, the Sick man's salve. p. 271. 272. 273. 274. 424. 425. 426. 427. Of Stephen Garret, The sum of the holy Scriptures. printed, 1547. cap. 4. 7. 8. 13. in the days of King Edward the 6. Of Reverend Master Nowel in his authorized Catechism on the 3. petition of the Creed: the holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins. Of Master John Fox, his Book of Martyrs. London, 1597. p. 1506. Col. 1. l. 74. 80. In his sermon at Paul's Cross, printed, Cum priuilegio, London. 1570. fol. 19. 20. Of Master John Veron, in his Fruitful Treatise of Predestination. fol. 40. to 63. 79. 106. to 110. Where this our conclusion is largely proved. Of Master John Daniel, his Excellent comfort to all Christians. cap. 3. 4. 5. 6. 27. Of Master Thomas Palfryman, in his Treatise of heavenly Philosophy. lib. 1. cap. 7. 8. Of Master Edward Deering, in his 7. 10. 14. 16. 18. 24. and 27. Lectures on the Hebrews. Of Master James Price, his Fan of the Faithful. cap. 1. 2. 3. 4. Of Learned Doctor Fulke, and Master Cartwright, Notes on the Rhemish Testament. Notes on Luke 8. sect. 1. on Romans 11. sect. 2. on 1. Tim. 1. sect. 2. on Apocalypse 2. sect. • 2. Of Learned and Godly Bishop Babington, Exposition on the 12. Article of the Creed. Life everlasting. page 259. 260. in his works at large. In his profitable Exposition on the Lord's prayer. page 127. 128. 194. to 203. 222. with his Sermon at Paul's Cross. 1591. part 1. and 3. p. 273. &c. Of Solid Doctor Whitaker's: Responsio ad 8. Rationes Campiani. De Paradoxis. lib. 18. De Ecclesia. Controuersia. 2. Quaest. 3. cap. 2. p. 146. and Gygnea Cantio. p. 17. to 25. Of Doctor Sparkes, Answer to John De Albines Discourse against Haeresies. cap. 34. page 281. to 285. and in his comfortable Treatise for a troubled Conscience. London, 1580. of Master Robert Keilway, Sermon of sure Comfort. 1580. page 22. to 27. and 46. to 85. Of Master John Udall, his Peters Fall. London, 1589. Sermon 2. Of Master Arthur Gurney, his Fruitful Dialogue between Reason and Religion. fol. 45. 46. 47. Of Master John Anwicke, Meditations upon God's Monarchy, and the Devils Kingdom. cap. 6. 7. 10. 11. Bartimaeus Andreas, Sermon, 2. on Canticles 5. page 64. to 70. Of Master John Northbrooke, his poor man's spiritual Garden. cap. 1. and 18. Of Learned. Matthew Hutton Arch-Bishop of York: De Electione & Reprobatione Commentatio. page 41. 42. 43. Of Doctor Esteius De Certudine salutis & persevere antiae Sanctorum non interrupta Oratio Cantabrigiae habita. page 45. to 64. Of Doctor Robert Some, Tractatus de tribus Quaestionibus. Quaestio. 3. p. 85. to 93. Of Doctor Chaderton, De Iustificationis coram Deo, & fidei iustificantis Perseuerantia non intercisa page 94. to 112. (to whom I might add those several Bishops, Doctors and Deuines, which composed Barrets Recantation, and the Articles of Lambeth, which conclude in terminis for us.) Of Godly and experimental Master Greenham, Grave Counsels and Aphorisms, Addition. 2. and 3. in his works at large, London. 1612. p. 46. 51. 63. sect. 24. p. 68. His first Sermon. Quench not the Spirit. p. 246. to 250. His 14. Sermon p. 341. Exposition on Psal. 119. page 382. 495. 496. Godly Instructions. cap. 32. page 694. cap. 53. page 764. A Letter against hardness of heart. p. 864. A Letter consolatory. p. 876. Of Edwin Arch-Bishop of York, Sermon on Luke. 1. page 74. 75. sect. 14. Of Solid and Scholastical Master William Perkins, Exposition on the Creed. Tom. 1. of his works p. 254. 282. 283. Treatise of Disertions. p. 417. Reformed Catholic. point. 3. page 562. 563. &c. Of God's Free Grace, and man's Free Will. page 738. 739. A Treatise of Predestination. Tom. 2. page 636. 637. 638. Exposition on Jude, verse 1. Tom. 3. page 487. 488. Of incomparable Hooker, Discourse of Justification. sect. 26. Sermon of the Perpetuity and certainty of faith in the Elect. Sermon 1. on Jude. sect. 10. to 15. Of Master William Burton, in his David's Evidence. 1596. Sermon 5. p. 102. to 115. Of Master John Hill in his Life everlasting. lib. 5. cap. 2. Quaest. 4. 5. 6. cap. 3. Quaest 21. and of Reverend Master Phillips, Sermon on Romans 8. ver. 15. 16. in the reign of blessed Queen Elizabeth. Of Learned King James of happy memory, in his Declaration against Vorstius. page 15. 18. 19. 26. 35. where he stiles the Arminian Assertion of the Apostasy of the Saints, a wicked Doctrine, a blasphemous Haeresie, directly contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England: and Bertius his Book of the Apostasy of the Saints, a blasphemous Book, the very Title whereof were enough to make it worthy the fire, branding Bertius, with the name of an Haretique and Atheistical sectorie. Of eminent, learned and renowned Doctor Reinolds, Thesis. 4. sect. 23. 24. Defensio Thesium, sect. 17. 20. Censura Librorum Apochryph. Praelectio. 207. and conference at Hampton Court. page 41. 42. 43. Of Reverend and learned Doctor Robert Abbot, late Bishop of Salisbury, once Regius Professor of Divinity in Oxford. in his Answer to Bishop part 1. cap. 12. part 2. cap. 3. De perse • erantia Sanctorum Lectura 1. read publicly in the Divinity Schools of Oxford, July 10. 1613. in the Act time, and Animaduersio in Thompsoni Diatribam. Of profound Doctor Field, of the Church, book 1. cap. 3. 6. 7. 8. Answer to Theophylus Higgons 1. part. cap. 3. 2. part. sect. 2. page 832. 833. 834. Of judicious Doctor Bulckley, in his Apology for the Religion established in the Church of England. London, 1608. page 62. 64. 196. Of Acute Doctor William Sclater, in his Sermon preached at Paul's Cross, September, 17. 1609. on Hebr. 6. 3. 4. 5. 6. London, 1610. and in his Exposition on the 1. Epistle of the Thessalonians, cap. 1. ver. 4. page 30. ver. 5. page 39. 40. 44. cap. 3. ver. 13. page. 251. c. 5. ver. 9. 10. p. 436. to 455. ver. 19. p. 596. ver. 20. p. 535. 536. v. 24. p. 524. 571. Exposition on Epistle 2. cap. 1. ver. 3. p. 7. v. 10. p. 53. 54. v. 11. p. 66. to 71. c. 2. v. 13. p. 178. to 190. c, 3. v. 3. p. 229. to 234. Of Laborious and learned Doctor Willet, Commentary on Romans 5. Controuersie 3. on cap. 6. Controu. 7. on cap. 8. Con. 17. 19. on cap 9. Cont. 16. on c. 11. Con. 21. and Synopsis Papismi. page 64. 65. 448. 923. 924. 925. Of Godly Master Richard Rogers, in his 7. Treatises. Treatise. 2. cap. 20. Treatise 6. cap. 2. 3. 4. 5. Of Master Thomas Rogers, Analysis on the 17. Article. Proposition 3. Of Master Francis Trigge true Catholic. cap. 5. London 1602. p. 150. to 187. Of Master Wotton, Trial of the Rhomish Clergies, title of the Church. London, 1608. page 212. and in his Dangerous Plot discovered, London, 1626. cap. 11. 12. page 37. to 81. Of Master John Tr • ndall His Ark Against the Dragons flood. London, 1608. page 4. 5. 22. Of Master Stock in his Doctrine of Repentance, London, 1610. p. 167. 168. 169. 170. Of Master Brightman on the Revelation. cap. 3. v. 5. 11. 12. cap. 13. 8. cap. 17. 8. c. 20. 6. 15. and cap. 22. 11. Of Godly M. Heiron in his Abridgment of the Gospel. Sermon 1. in his works at large. London, 1620. part 1. page 102. 109. The worth of the water of Life. p. 205. 206. The spiritual Sonship. page 308. 365. to 374. A caveat and comfort for believers. page 623. to 627. and Penance for sin. part 2. p. 64. 65. Of Learned and Solid Doctor John White in his way to the true Church. Digression. 42. 43. and his Defense of the way. cap. 16. sect. 4. Of Master Thomas Wilson Sermon of Perseverance. 1608. In his Exposition on Romans 8. v. 30. c. 5. v. 2. c. 11. v. 29. Of Master Wilcocks Exposition on Psal. 1. 3. on Psal. 37. 23. 24. on Psal. 125. Of Master Draxe his Worlds resurrection. p. 42. 56. 57. 66. 67. 77. 78. Of Acute Doctor Ames, Coronis ad Collationem Hagiensem. Article 5. Of Learned Doctor Crakenthorpe, Sermon of Predestination, London, 1620. p. 26. 30. 31. 32. and Defensio Ecclesiae Anglicanae contra Archiepiscopum Spalatensem. cap. 78. Master Richard Web in his Sermon entitled The Lot and partion of the Righteous, London 1616. Master Paul Bayne, in his trial of a Christians Estate, on Heb. 10. 39. London 1618. and in his Commentary on Ephesians 1. p. 109. 110. 302. 306. 307. 393. 402. 403. Master William Cowper, his • ight way to Eternal glory, on Rom. 8. p. 342. 355. 356. 362. 363. 370. and in his Glorification of a Christian p. 448. 449. 455. 456. 457. Master William Harrison in his Sermon of Deaths advantage little regarded, London, 1602. p. 14. 15. Master Nathaniel Byfield Discourse of the Promises. cap. 13. and Exposition on Colossians. 1. p. 93. 144. 145. Master Randall in his Sermons on Romans 8. Master Elton his Sermons on Rom. 8. 30. entitled the Triumph of a Christian. Master Elnathan Parre his Grounds of Divinity. Edit. 3. page 220. D. John Bayes, late Dean of Canterbury in his works, London 1622. p. 189. 483. 768. 928. Master Bradshaw Commentary on 2. Thess. 3. 3. 4. 5. Sir John Haywood in his David's Tears, on Psal. 32. v. 4. sect. 12. 15. 16. Of Learned Doctor Benefield, De Perseuerantia Sanctorum. Libri. 2. Of Master Robert Yarrow. A Sovereign Comfort for a troubled Conscience. cap. 38. to the end of the Book. p. 352. to 439. Of Doctor Thomas Taylor in his Parable of the Sower. London, 1623. p. 413 to 452. Of Master John Downam, Sum of Divinity. lib. 2. cap. 1. 6. and 7. and his Christian Warfare. lib. 2. c. 13. to 22. Of Master Timothy Rogers, his Righteous man's evidence for Heaven. London, 1621. p. 236. 237. 246. Of Caleb Dilechampius, Vindictiae Solomonis, Cantabrigiae. 1622. Of Reverend Bishop. Hall, Contemplation. Volume. 6. lib. 17. Solomon's Defection. p. 1274. in his works at large. Of Eminent Doctor Prideaux, in his Ephesus Backsliding: and Lectura 6. De perseuerantia Sanctorum. Oxomae. 1621. Iulij 7. in Vesperijs Comitiorum. Of Master Samuei Crooke in his Guide to true Blessedresse. Edit. 3. p. 44. 45. 60. 68. 78. Of Master Samuel Smith his David's blessed man. London. 1623. Edit. 7. page 222. to 227. and his Chief Shepherd. p. 96. 97. 98. 486. 487. Of Master Thomas Couper, Growing in Grace. London, 1622. p. 15. 346. to 379. Of Master John Frewen Grounds of Religion. London, 1621. Quaest. 13. and 23. Of Doctor Griffith Williams in his Delights of the Saints. London, 1622. page 157. to 186. Of D. Thomas Jackson, the raging Tempest stilled. p. 319. to 345. Of Doctor William Gouge, his whole Armor of God. p. 256. 286. Of Master Ezechtel Culuerwell, Treatise of Faith. p. 489. to 506. Of Master Cleauer, Sermon on John 6. v. 26. 27. Doctr. 4. Of Doctor Francis White now Bishop of Norwich, Reply to Fisher. page 49. to 55. 80. 82. 84. 87. 102. 167. 168. 200. Of Learned Master Thomas Gaetiker, his Gaine of Godliness, David's remembrance, the lust man's Joy, and signs of Sincerity. Of Doctor Carlton the late Reverend Bishop of Chichester. Doctor Dauenat Bishop of Salesbury. Doctor Goad, Doctor Balcanquel, and Doctor Ward, See Suffragium Brittanorum; and the Synod of Dort, Article. 5. to which they have all subscribed their names; in the reign of our late Sovereign King James. Of Learned Master Richard Bernard, his Rheemes against Rome. page 303. to the end. Of Reverend Bishop Dauenat, Expositio Epistolae Pauliad Collossenses. cap. 1. v. 23. p. 144. 145. c. 3. v. 8. p. 364. 365. v. 8. p. 368. c. 4. v. 14. p. 519. Of Master John Rogers; Doctrine of Faith. p. 319. to 345. Of Master Scudder in his Christians daily walk. Edit. 2. cap. 15. sect. 7. Of Master William Pemble his Vindiciae Gratiae. p. 34. 35. 36. Of Master Robert Bolton General Directions for the Comfortable walking with God. p. 22. 23. 24. Of Master John Barlow, Exposition on 2. Tim. 1. p. 135. 278. 279. 367. 368. 369. 374. Of Doctor Ward Concio ad Clerū. & suffr. Bri. Arti. 5. Of M. William Sparkes, his Mistery of godliness, Oxoniae, 1629. c. 2. Of Doctor Thomas Goad, Pelagius Rediuiuus. Of Acute and learned Doctor Featly 2. Parallel. page. 21. to 95. Of Master Henry Burton of Christ-Church in Oxford, in his Melancholie. Edit. 3. p. 641. Of Master Samuel Ward in his Balm from Gilead to recover Conscience. p. 56. 78. Of Master Henry Burton of St. Martins in Friday street, his Plea to an Appeale. p. 6. to 40. and his Truth triumphing over Trent. cap. 17. Of Master, John Weems his Portraiture of God's image in man. London, 1627. c. 16. where this point is pithily handled. Of Sir Christopher Sybthorpe his friendly Aduertisement to the Catholics of Ireland. cap. 7. 8. Of Master Francis Rouse in his Doctrine of King James. p. 39. to 98. Of Master Yates his Ibis ad Caesarem. p. 104. to 157. Of Reverend Bishop Carlton, Examination of Master Montague's Appeale. cap. 5. 6. 7. 8. with the joint affections of all our Dort Divines, being men of note and eminency in our Church: and of my own Perpetuity of A Regenerate man's estate: to omit the late printed works of some other moderne Authors, formerly quoted. All these recited Writers of our Church, being one hundred and more in number; have all of them in substance, most of them in terminis, even purposely, copiously, unanimously, constantly, and professedly defended, the total, and final perseverance of the Saints, as the undoubted Doctrine of our Church: oppugning and largely reselling, the Pelagian Popish and Arminian Haeresie, of the Saints Apostasy, and of true grace in Reprobates, which is peculiar to the Elect alone. Never was there any one point of Doctrine which our Church embraceth, so copiously maintained, so abundantly seconded and backed with a constant and uninterrupted stream and series of Authorites, and printed Records as this; no orthodox member of our Church so much as once impeaching it: no spurious or rotten member since Barrets public K • cantation, so much as once oppugning it in any authorized work, Master Montague's, and Doctor lacksons only excepted, which, all men generally dislike: Therefore we may now without all Quaestion or dispute, declare, resolve, and finally adjudge it, to be the ancient established, and undoubted Doctrine of our Church: taking all such for Pelagians, Papists, Arminians, yea pestilent Haeretickes, atheistical Sectaries, and dangerous Innouators, (as King James hath long since doomed and adjudged them to our hands) who have been, are, or shalb • so audaciously praesumptuous, as either publicly in words or writing to oppugn it.

You have seen now Christian Readers these 7, Anti-Arminian Positions infallibly, irrefragably proved to be the ancient, established, professed, and resolved Doctrine of the Church of England, by the several, yet unanimous Articles of England, Lambeth, and Ireland: by the Common prayer Book, and Homilies authorized in our Church: the Catechism allowed by King Edward the 6. the Quaestions and Answ. of Predestination, bound up and printed with our ancient Bibles: the famous Synod of Dort; the Recantation of Barret, and by the unanimous punctual, full and copious testimony of all the eminent, learned, godly, and renowned Writers, Martyrs, Pillers. and Fathers of our Church from the very infancy of her reformation to this present; not one of them so much as as once oppugning the truth or orthodoxie of all or any of them; and shall we, may me, can we now be so ridiculously absurd, so audaciously irreligious, as once to question; whether they are the received Doctrines of our Church or no? Doutlesse if the Church of England hath any Truthes or Doctrines in her, these must, these cannot but be they; since I dare boldly aver, because I doubt not but to prove it; that no points of Doctrine whatsoever, (no not the points of Justification by faith alone, of Transubstantiation, or of the Sacrament in both kinds,) have been more punctually, frequently, unanimously, and copiously defended, then all, or most of these, who have all the learned of our Church their open and professed Advocates.

If any man now be so strangely obdurated, so willfully blinded with Popish & Arminian Errors, that he will not yet subscribe unto these evident and most apparent orthodox conclusions, not yet acknowledge them for the ancient, the undoubted [ 1] Doctrine of the Church of England, let him give me leave to vouch some other Praecedents and Records which shall force him to confess it. The entire Church of England consists of three grand members: The Church of Ireland, the Church of Scotland, and the Church of England, the mother or mistress of the other two: If then I can vncontroulable evidence, that these three several Churches did constantly heretofore, and do as yet unanimously acknowledge, defend, and justify these our Anti-Arminian Conclusions, the victory, trial, and points in present issue must be yielded to me.

For the Church of Ireland; its out of question, that she hath always both in ancient and moderne ages concluded with us. For in ancient times, in the points of the immutabisity, aeternity, and freeness of God's Election; the praedetermined number of God's Elect; the infallible certainty of their effectual calling and salvation: Reprobation, Freewill, and universal grace, we shall find Saint Gallus, Sedulius, and Claudius, three ancient Irish Fathers, and with them the ancient Irish Church; concurring fully with us, and with St. Augustine, in these our orthodox positions, as that Reverend, learned, and incomparable Irishman, Doctor Usher, Arch-Bishop of Ardmagh, the honor of our Church, and glory of his Nation, hath evidently, and largely proved, in his Epistle of the Religion professed by the ancient Irish, bound up at the end of Sir Christopher Sybthorpes works. page 7. 8. 9. to which I will refer you. What the moderne Doctrine of the Church of Ireland is, the fore-recorded Articles of Ireland, composed in the Conuocation at Dublin: in the year 1615. which conclude in terminis for us, together with Bishop Vshers Answer to the Jesuits Challenge, his now recited Epistle, and Sir Christopher Sybthorpes Aduertisement. cap. 7. 8. sufficiently evidence: so that both the Primatiue, and present Irish Church are wholly, fully for us, point-blank against our Opposites.

That the ancient and moderne Church of Scotland hath [ 2] suffragated unto our Conclusions, it is vndeniablie evident, by their unanimous and general Confession of the true Christian faith and religion, subscribed by King James himself, his household, with sundry others at Edinburgh the 28. of January, in the year 1581. being the 14. year of his Majesty's reign. Articles: Of Original sin: Of Election, of Faith in the holy Ghost: Of the cause of good works: Of the Church, of the immortality of the soul, by M. Knox in his Answ. against the Adversaries of God's. Predestination: by Master Rollocke, Rector of the University of Edinburgh, his Commentary on the Ephesians. cap. 1. 2. 3. and 5. and on Psalm 51. By Master William Cowper Bishop of Galloway in Scotland, once Minister of Perth, in his Heaven opened, on Rom. 8. v. • 9. 28. to the end, and in sundry other of his works. By Master John Weenise his Portraiture of the Image of God in man. cap. 16. of Freewill, where all, or most of these Arminian point • are pithily discussed. By Sharpius a learned Scot, Professor of Divinity now in Dyon: Tractatus De Justification. cap. 5. and Syntag •• a Theology, who all concur unanimously with us in these our present conclusions, which they professedly and pertinaciously maintain and justify.

[ 3] That the Primatiue Church of England hath suscribed to our present Assertions; her ancient public opposition to Pelagianism, her Bede, her Anselm, her Bradwardine, and Wycliffe testify; in that they constantly adhaered to St. Augustine's, and so to our Assertions, as the undoubted truth, oppugning these now Arminian, then Pelagian. Tenants, as dangerous and grace-opposing errors, as their places quoted in the margent, and in part recited in my Perpetuity. p. 257. 261. &c. will more at large declare. The ancient Church of England, and these her famous writers, were professed Anti-Pelagians, therefore Anti-Arminians. What this our Church hath been of latter times, the fore-recited evidences, and Authors do abundantly testify: I need not here repeat it: I will therefore only add some further evidences, to prove, our Anti-Arminian positions to be; our Arminian noualties not, to be, the ancient received and undoubted Doctrine of our Church.

My first, of these more full and puctuall evidences, is the ingeminated confession and reiterated protestation of of the Heades of the Vniuersity of Cambridge, in a memorable Letter of theirs purposely written about the suppression of these new Arminian errors to their honored Chancellor, and subscribed with their several hands. March 8. 1595. which Letter I have truly transcribed out of the original Copy, (remaining in the hands of Doct. G: who can produce it if occasion serve,) in sor • e as followeth.

THe several observations from this Letter I have briefly touched in the margent: yet give me leave to traverse them once again, since repetition will make them more observable. First, it is evident by this Letter, that the Articles of Lambeth are no feigned, no private Articles or private spirits, as some repute them: since not only our [ 1] two Arch-Bishops, and their other Associates, but even the whole Vniuersity of Cambridge concurred in their composition in their two famous Doctors, Tyndale and Whitaker's, men specially chosen by them for this purpose. Secondly, that the Articles of Lambeth (which were afterwards [ 2] printed at Cambridge, by themselves, and since that with the last Lectures of Doctor Whitaker's, ) were after their constitution approved, and received by the Vniuersity? of Cambridge, who enjoyed much peace and quiet by them: which disproues that forged story of Coruinus, touching the revocation of the Articles by Queen Elizabeth, and of Bishop Whitgifts incurring a Praemunire, and the Queens displeasure by them Thirdly, that the Articles of Lambeth contain in them, no noualties, but only the substantial points of Religion taught and received in the Vniuersity of Cambridge, & the Church of England, and consented unto by the best approved Divines, both at home and abroad, during the whole reign of Queen Elizabeth: Therefore we may safely embrace them, as a full declaration of the professed and undoubted Doctrines of our Church. Fourthly, that our Anti-Arminian Conclusions (directly opposite to Barrets and Baroes Errors, which this Letter mentions) are the resolved and confirmed truth, yea the received, established, and long professed Doctrines of the Church of England, and the Vniuersity of Cambridge. Fifthly, that the Arminian Errors (for these only were Barrets and Baroes Errors of which this Letter speaks) are agreeable to Popery, and quite contrary to the Religion taught and received in the Church of England, ever since Queen Elizabeth's reign. Sixthly, that Arminianism is but a Bridge or Usher unto gross Popery, yea a means to draw away Subjects from their obedience to his Majesty, and to bring in the whole body of Popery into our Church by little and little: then all which obseruacions, there can be nothing more punctual or advantageous for our Anti-Arminian positions, more opposite or disaduantagious to these Arminian Errors.

Compare this Letter and its several passages, with the Recantation of Barre • , with the Vniuersity Order formerly quoted; and then it will be vndeuiably evident, that our present Assertions were formerly held the undoubted and resolved Doctrines of the Church of England by the whole Vniuersity of Cambridge; and dare any of her Heads or members disclaim, or disauow them now?

My second Evidence, is the authority and resolution of my much honored Mother, the Vniuersity of Oxford: who from her Learned Divinity Professor, Peter Martyrs time, (who planted and propagated our Anti-Arminian Assertions in her, in King Edwards days, by his excellent Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans, ) hath constantly to this very present embraced, professed, and publicly defended our present positions in her Divinity Schools, as the undoubted truth and Doctrine of our Church: Witness the 4 ^th . Thesis of her incomparable Reinolds: (Sancta Catholica Ecclesia quam credimus, est • aetus Vniuersus Electorum Dei.) Tractata in Schola Theologica: Nouem. 3. 1579. The solemn Anti-Arminian Lectures, of her Reverend and learned Regius Divinity Professor, Doctor Robert Abbot, late Bishop of Salisbury: De Gratia & perseuerantia Sanctorum: and De Veritate Gratiae Christi: read publicly in her Divinity Schools, in her Act time, in the years 1613. 1614. 1615. the professed Anti-Arminian Lectures, of her vnparalled present Regius Divinity Professor, Doctor John Prideaux, De Absoluto Reprobationis Decreto: De scientia media: De Gratia Vniuersal • De Conuersionis modo: De Perseuerantia Sanctorum: De salutis Certudine. and De salute Ethnicorum: all which were solemnly read in her Divinity Schools at her public Acts, in the years 1616. 1617. 1618. 1619. 1621. 1622. 1623. the public Anti-Arminian Lectures of her judicious and learned late Lady Margaret Professor, D. Sebastian Benefield, De Sanctorum perseuerantia: lib. 2. read solemnly in her Schools in the year 1617. and since that printed at Franckfort for their better dispersion into the parts of Germany, in the year 1618. together with the late Act Questions, of her proceeding Doctors of Divinity in the year 1627. which I shall here set down in brief as I find them printed.

All these recited testimonies of this my famous Mother Vniuersity, who hath constantly bent her self against Arminius and his Followers: together with the late conuinction of one Brookes, (a young ungrounded Divine,) before her Heads, for broaching some Arminian Tenants in a Sermon at Saint Mary's; do undoubtedly prove our Anti-Arminian Assertions, thus constantly defended, professed, and resolved by her chief Professors, the vnquae • tionable and received Doctrines of our Church. That which both our Universities have constantly embraced, professed & patronized since the reformation to this present, must needs be the ancient received, and undoubted Doctrine of our Church: But both our Universities have ever from the beginning of Reformation to this present, even constantly embraced, professed, and protected our Anti-Arminian positions, but oppugned their Arminian opposites: (this the present, with the praecedent and subsequent evidences will infallibly demonstrate.) Therefore they must needs be the ancient received, and undoubted doctrine of our Church.

[ 3] My 3. Evidence is the express confession of three reverend Divines of special note and credit in our Church: The first of them is famous Doctor Whitaker's, who informeth us in his last Sermon: That the Church of England ever since the Gospel was restored to 〈◊〉 , hath always held and embraced this opinion of Election and Reprobation which he there ( and we here ) maintains. This Bucer (saith he ) in our Vniuersity; this Peter Martyr at Oxford, have professed: two eminent Divines, who have most abundantly watered our Church with their streams in the days of King Edward; whose memories shall be always honorable among us, unless we will be most ungrateful: This opinion their Auditors in both our Universities; the Bishops, Deans, and other Divines, who upon the advancement of our famous Queen Elizabeth to the Crown, returned either from exile, or were released from the prisons into which they had been thrust for the profession of the Gospel: or saved from the hands of persecuting Bishops: those by whom our Church was reformed, our Religion established, Popery thrust out and quite destroyed, all which we may remember, though few of this kind be yet living. This opinion (I say) they themselves have held, and commended unto us: in this faith have they lived, in this they died, in this they always wished that we should constantly continue: And shall we then renounce this Opinion, or question whether it be the Doctrine of our Church or no? Lastly, I appeal (saith he) to our confession; in which I am persuaded the same Doctrine which I have this day handled is not obscurely delivered: not only because all our Articles were composed by the Disciples of Bucer and Martyr, but even out of the very words and meaning of the Confession: and so he proceeds to prove his Doctrine to be warranted by our 17. Article by 5. several Arguments.

The second Witness is Reverend Bishop Carlton in his Examination of Master Montague's Appeale cap. 2. where he writes thus.

The Church of England was reformed by the help of our learned and Reverend Bishops, in the days of King Edward the sixth, and in the beginning of the Rain of Queen Elizabeth. They who then gave that form of reformation to our Church, held consent in Doctrine with Peter Martyr, and Martin Bucer, being by authority appointed Readers in the two Universities: and with other then living, whom they Iudged to be of best learning and soundness in the reformed Churches: and of the Ancients especially with St. Augustine, and were careful to hold this Unity amongst themselves, and with the reformed Churches. For that these worthy Bishops who were in the first reformation, had this respect unto P. Martyr, and M. Bucer, it is apparent, both because the Doctrine of our Church doth not differ from the Doctrine that these taught, and because that worthy Arch-Bishop Cranmer caused our Liturgy to be Translated into Latin, and craved the consent and judgment of M. Bucer, who gave a full consent thereto, as it appeareth in his works, Inter opera Anglicana. And P. Martyr being likewise requested, writeth in his Epistles touching that matter, his judgment and consent of the government and discipline of our Church.

This uniformity of Doctrine was held in our Church without disturbance, as long as those worthy Bishops lived, who were employed in the reformation.

For albeit the Puritans disquieted out Church about their conceived Discipline, yet they never moved any quarrel against the Doctrine of our Church, which is well to be observed. For if they had embraced any Doctrine which the Church of England denied, they would assuredly have quarrelled about that as well, as they did about the Discipline. But it was then the open confession both of the Bishops and of the Puritans, that both parts embraced a mutual consent in Doctrine, only the difference was in matter of inconformity: Then hitherto there was no Puritan Doctrine known.

The first disturbers of this uniformity in Doctrine, were Barret and Baroe in Cambridge, and after them Thompson. • arret and Baroe began this breach in the time of that most Reverend Prelate, Arch-Bishop Whitgift.

Notwithstanding that these had attempted to disturb the Doctrine of our Church, yet was the uniformity of Doctrine still maintained.

For when our Church was disquieted by Barret and Baro, the Bishops that then were in our Church, examined the new Doctrine of these men, and utterly disliked and rejected it: And in the point of Predestination confirmed that which they understood to be the Doctrine of the Church of England against Barret and Baro, who oppugned that Doctrine.

This was fully declared by both the Arch-Bishops, Whitgift of Canterbury, and Hutton of York, with the other Bishops and learned men of both Provinces, who repressed Barret and Baro, refuted their Doctrine, and justified the contrary, as appeareth by that Book, which both the Arch-Bishops then compiled.

The same Doctrine which the Bishops then maintained, was at diverse times after approved, as in the Conference at Hampton Court, as will be hereafter confirmed. And again it was confirmed in Ireland, in the Articles of Religion in the time of our late Sovereign, Articulo 38.

The Author of the Appeale pleadeth against the Articles of Lambeth, and justifieth the Doctrine of Barret, Baro and Thomson, averring the same to be the Doctrine of the Church of England.

This he doth not by naming of those men, whose names he knew would bring no honor to this cause: but by laying down and justifying their doctrines, and suggesting that they who maintained the doctrines contained in the Articles of Lambeth, are Calvinists and Puritans: So that those Reverend Arch-Bishops, Whitgift and Hutton, with the Bishops of our Church, who then lived, are in his judgment to be rejected as Puritans.

The question is, Whether of these two positions we must now receive for the doctrines of our Church: that which Barret, Baro, and Thompson would have brought in, which doctrines were then refuted and rejected by our Church; Or that doctrine which the Bishops of our Church maintained against these men, which doctrine hath been since upon diverse occasions approved? If there were no more to be said, I dare put it to the Issue before any indifferent Judges. Thus far this reverend Bp. whose testimony alone might sufficiently determine our present Controuersie.

The third witness is Doctor Samuel Ward in his Concio ad Clerum, preached in St. Mary's in Cambridge, January 12. 1625. page 45. This also (saith he) I can truly add for a conclusion; that the Universal Church hath always adhaered to St. Augustine in these points, (speaking before of some Anti-Arminian conclusions, all which are fully related in his Suffragium Brittanorum, annexed to this Clerum,) ever since his time till now: the Church of England also from the beginning of reformation, and this our famous Academie, with all those who from thence till now, have with us enjoyed the Divinity Chaires, if we except one foreign. French man, (to wit, Peter Baro,) one, I say, who by the vigilancy of our Ancestors, and the large authority of the most Reverend Arch-Bishop Whitgist was compelled to renounce his chair, have likewise constantly adhaered to him: And if to him, then certainly to us, as the 2. part of his 7. To me which makes wholly for us, will infallibly evidence: By these three several testimonies it is abundantly evident, that our Divinity Professors and first reformers of Religion in King Edward the 6. his days: our Reverend and learned orthodox Divines that either suffered, or escaped Martyrdom in Queen Mary's days: our Bishops, Divines, and learned Clergy, who composed our Articles in Queen Elizabeth's days: our famous Universities of Oxford, and Cambridge, with all their Divinity Professors from the beginning of reformation to this present; (excepting Baro, who was convented, and in a manner expelled for his erroneous Tenants,) together with the whole Church of England from her first reformation to this instant, have constantly approved, unanimously embraced, [ 4] and resolutely maintained our Anti-Arminian conclusions, as the undoubted resolutions and Doctrines of our English Church: and will any man now be so audaciously absurd, as to call them into question, whether they are the Doctrines of our Church or no?

Not to speak of Master Samuel Ward, or Master Carpenter, or M. Deubtie, or other of our late vnrecited writers, who condemn Arminianism in the gross: not yet to mention any of the fore-quoted Authors: my 4 ^th . Evidence to prove our Anti-Arminian Tenants the undoubted Doctrines of our Church; is the authorized translating and printing in our English dialect, not only of St. Augustine's chief works against the Pelagians; but even of Calvin, Beza, Zanchius, Bucani •• , Trelcatius, Bastingius, Ursinus, Kimedoncius, Piscator, Fayus, Olenian, Junius, Reniger, and Moulins, works against the Pseudo-Lutherans, and Arminians, who pass for orthodox and approved Authors in our Church, whom some style a Caluinist.

Certainly if the Doctrine of our English Church, were various from these Authors Tenants, they being the greatest Anti-Arminians this day exstant; their names would never be so venerable, their works not so highly esteemed in our Church, as to be thus englished, authorized, sold, and printed here among us (as we know they are) without control: Since then our Church hath thus indenized and adopted these foreign Authors with their Anti-Arminian Writings; since she thus claims them for, and ranks them with her own, her Doctrines questionless are the same with theirs; and so wholly ours, not our Arminian Opposites, whom all these pointblancke oppugn.

You have seen now, pious Readers, what plentiful numerous, punctual, full and fair Evidences, Records and witnesses, of all sorts, and ages our Anti-Arminian Tenants have produced, to vindicate and prove themselves the ancient, established, professed, resolved, and undoubted Doctrines of the Church of England: Let us now examine on the other side what evidences, what testimonies these Arminian Errors can rake up together, to entitle themselves unto our Church.

First of all, they have none of the fore-quoted Article • , [ 1] Hom • lies, Common prayer Book, Chatechismes, Syn • d, or Recantation; no public record or monument of our reformed Church to justify them; Yea all these (as our Church hath always hitherto expounded them) do positively condemn them for insufferable and branded Errors.

[ 2] Secondly, there is never a Martyr, never a Divinity Professor in either of our Universities, ( Baro, a spurious Frenchman excepted,) never an orthodox or approved English Writer that I know off from the beginning of Reformation to this instant, that can give in any evidence in one particular point, (much less in all points) on their side, being rightly understood; where as we have produced a whole Century of Authors, if not more, against there. The only Authors that they can produce, and those but partial maimed, and obscure witnesses, not entire, or perspicuous; are Peter Baro in Queen Elizabeth's: Thompson in King James, and M. Montague, and Jackson in King Charles his reign: men branded and condemned in our Church. The first of these being an exortique Frenchman, was solemnly convented and censured for his erroneous Books and Tenants; first at Lambeth, by the composers of the Lambeth Articles, and afterwards in the Vniuersity of Cambridge by all the heads of Houses, upon the complaint of diverse Batchellors of Divinity: upon which he • was forced to forsake that Vniuersity, and our Kingdom too, This branded and illegal witness then, being at the very best a forraigner, doth only mar, not help their cause: The second was but an Anglo-Belgicus, a dissolute, ebrious and luxurious English-Dutchman: his Book was denied Licens here, as being contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England; and being printed at Leyden after his death for want of licens here; it was presently refelled by a reverend and learned Prelate of our Church, Doctor Robert Abbot, Bishop of Salisbury, whose Book now extant, was imprinted by authority; and dedicated to our royal Sovereign, then Prince of Wales. If then the life, or posthumus Book of this second Witness be examined, his testimony will but cast, not further, not advance their right: The third of these Witnesses (who was lately rumored to disclaim his testimony, and will either evade, or else withdraw, and retract his evidence when he comes to trial,) as he is a principal in the present controversy, & so no competent Judge or Witness; so he hath been 4. several times impeached by the high Court of Parliament, for giving false testimony in the points in Issue: besides, his testimony is wavering, dubious, and repugnant to it self, and it hath been counterpleaded by diverse of our Church, and generally disclaimed by most, as false and spurious: Therefore it doth but weaken, yea, betray their cause, and strengthen ours. The last of these being transported beyond himself with metaphisicall Contemplations, to his own infamy, and his renowned Mothers shame, (I mean the famous Vniuersity of Oxford, who grieves for his defection, from whose duggs he never sucked his poisonous Doctrines,) as his evidence is intricate and obscure beyond the reach or discovery of ordinary capacities; so it hath been blanched and blasted by a Parliament examination; excepted against by the Conuocation house; answered by some, disanowed by most of our Divines; his single testimony therefore, (especially in his own particular case where he cannot be both a party and a witness too;) makes nothing for their title to our Church. These are the only evidences and Authors to my knowledge that our Arminian Tenants can produce to interest them in our Church; and these, (all circumstances, being well considered,) make flat against them: since our Church hath utterly disauowed and distasted them, rejecting, yea condemning these their writings, as diametrally opposite to her established Doctrines. If any Arminian can produce any other English Writers whom our Church approves, to patronize these errors, I shall be willing to be informed of them; for my own part I never met with any but with these. I confess, that some would wrest Bishop Hooper to the contrary in the point of Reprobation, and universal redemption: but in truth he is for us, not against us, in these very points, if rightly apprehended: however he is evidently for us in the rest: But admit he were not, yet he is but one: his singular opinion therefore will not prejudice us; since we have an whole Century of better & more punctual witnesses for to back us.

[ 3] Thirdly, our Church hath been so far from reputing these her established and received Doctrines, that she hath convented & censured such as oppugners of her Doctrine, and disturbers of her peace, who have hitherto published or patronized them in their Books or Sermons: witness the solemn Conuiction and Recantation of Barret, Baro, and others, in the year 1595. they being the first that broached them in our Church: witness the Recantation of Master Simpson in Cambridge in King James his latter time, and the late conuention of one Brookes in Oxford, for broaching these Arminian Tenants: witness the proceedings in Parliament against Master Montague's and Jackson's Arminian Books, which are generally distasted throughout the Kingdom: and can any then be so shamelessly audacious, as now for to aver them, to be the undoubted, established, or received Doctrines of our Church?

[ 4] Fourthly, the whole Army, stream and torrent of the fore-recited learned Authors of our Church, both of ancient, moderne, and present times, have always constantly, professedly oppugned them, as directly opposit to the established & received Doctrines of the Church of England; as stigmatical, damnable & old-condemned Errors, first hatched by Pelagius, thē nursed by his Followers, fomented by Demi-Pelagians; revived & propagated by Popish Schoolmen; and since that abetted by Pseudo-Lutherans, Socinians, Anabaptists, and Arminians: sects branded and condemned in our Church: and can we then be so stupendiously, so damnably absurd, as to affirm or judge them, the undoubted, the embraced Doctrines of our Church? Certainly, that which hath no Records, no Evidences, no authorized Writers of our Church to patronize it, all of them to oppugn it: that which our Martyrs never sealed, but cancelled with their blood; our first reformers never planted, but displanted in our Church: our Divinity Professors never justified, but condemned in our Vniuersity Schools: that which all our Authors never patronized, but constantly refelled as a branded Error, in their writings: that which both our Church and Universities have never constantly affirmed, but solemnly enjoined men to recant, as expressly contrary to the professed and resolved Doctrine of our Church; cannot be the Doctrine of the Church of England. But this is the case of all the fore-mentioned Arminian Errors, witness all the praemises. Therefore they cannot be the professed and resolved Doctrine of the Church of England, let Arminians vainly boast and babble to the contrary what they will.

Lastly, that which sundry ancient Councils, Fathers, and moderne Synods, have positively censured and condemned as a pestilent, dangerous, and grace-destroying Error: and not so much as one ancient Orthodox Council, Father, or moderne Synod ever ratified: as the ancient, Catholic and undoubted truth, can never be reputed the professed, established, and undoubted Doctrine of the Church of England: But sundry ancient Orthodox Councils, Fathers, and moderne Synods, have positively censured and condemned these very Arminian Tenants, as a pestilent, dangerous, and grace-destroying Error: and not so much as one ancient Council, Orthodox, Father, or moderne Synod ever ratified them, as the ancient Catholic, & undoubted truth: Therefore they can never be reputed, the professed, established, and undoubted Doctrine of the Church of England: The affirmative part of my Assumption, the Councils, Fathers, and Synods, quoted in the margent, with sundry others which I have at large recited in my Perpetuity of a Regenerate man's estate, page 213. to 270. (to which I shall refer you,) do fully warrant: For the negative part, let our Arminians disprove it if they can, since I must needs affirm; that I know not so much as one ancient Council, or moderne Synod, no nor yet one orthodox Father of the Primatiue Church, (unless Faustus an absolute Semi-Pelagian, though in show a professed Anti-Pelagian, may be reputed orthodox, when as both Protestants and Papists have hitherto branded him as unsound and Haeterodox in his Tenants:) that did ever yet maintain or justify, these Semi-Pelagian or Arminian Errors; If then they were never the received or approved Doctrines, but the branded Haeresies, of the Primitive Church; if they were never yet confirmed and settled in any Christian Church, by any one national or general Council, whether ancient or moderne, though they have been censured and condemned by diverse; they cannot be the established, the undoubted Doctrines of the Church of England.

You have he • re good Christian Readers, both heard, and seen, the several Evidences and Witnesses which Anti-Arminianism, and Arminianism can produce, to entitle themselves unto the Church of England, to which they both of late l • y claim: You have seen the Articles of England, Lambeth, and Ireland: the Common prayer Book, and Homilies established in our Church: The authorized Catechism of King Edward the 6. The Questions and Answers of Predestination: The Synod of Dort: The Recantation of Barret: The Concurrent consent of all our Godly, Learned, Eminent, and most admired Martyrs, Writers, and Divinity Professors, from the beginning of reformation to this present: The Resolution and judgment of both our famous Universities, Oxford, and Cambridge; yea the ancient and modern Churches of Ireland, Scotland, and England, with all their orthodox and learned members, giving testimony too, and judgment for the one; but disintitelling, disauowing and sentencing the other, which can find no full, no punctual Evidence, no competent, indifferent, orthodox, complete, or absolute, but only branded, censured, and recanting Witnesses, ( which cut the very nerves and heart-strings of their cause ) to give them any colorable title to, any seeming right or interest in our Church: Which then of these irreconcilable, incompliable Assertions, are the ancient, received, established, and resolved Doctrines of our Church, be ye the Judges. Certainly that which hath no full, no pregnant Evidences, no legal or vnattainted Witnesses, to justify or clear its right, or claim: that which was altogether unknown, and never heard off in our Church till now of late; that which is yet in Quaere, in further search, and discovery, (and so not yet believed by its own best studied Advocates, the case of rotten Pelagian Arminianism:) can never be: that which hath all these fore alleged Charters and testimonies to strengthen, and confirm its right, (the case and happy condition of Anti-Arminianism, ) must of necessity be, the true, the genuine and undoubted Doctrine of our Church. Let us therefore now at last without any further scrutiny of debate, exile this spurious and cursed Arminianism (which hath lately drawn the very curse and wrath of God, with sundry fatal judgments on us) out of our Church and state: let us once more adjudge & sink it to the very depths of Hell, to which it was of old condemned; as a most pernicious, turbulent, discomfortable, desperate, blasphemous, and grace-oppugning Heresy: and since England (I mean Pelagius a Britain, and a Monk of Bangor ) was the first that bred it, let her be now the first to ruin it. As for our Anti-Arminian Conclusions, the ancient, hereditary, and unquestionable Doctrines of the Church of England, and the chiefest treasure, joy and comfort of our souls, without which all other comforts and contentments are unpleasant: let us lodge them in our hearts, in throne them in our souls, settle them in our judgments, clasp them in our affections, and so perpetuate and establish them in our Church, that all the pollices and powers of Hell, all the stratagems and powder-plots of Rome, all the combinations and complotments of foreign Enemies, or domestic Traitors, (for such are all those Jesuited and Popish factors, who go about to innouate Religion, or to withdraw us from the doctrines now established in the Church of England, as these Tenants are:) may never be able to unsettle, or draw them into question anymore.

These Anti-Arminian Tenants, they are the very joy of our hearts, the life of our souls, the foundation of our eternal bliss; the only Evidences and Assurances that we have to entitle us to salvation: if these once faulter, or prove false, our joy, our spiritual comfort, the very grace and glory of God, and our salvation are endangered: if we come once to lose but these, the whole joy, the treasure, comfort, crown, and happiness of all true Christians, yea the whole frame and structure of God's grace, and the mysteries of our salvation are utterly subverted, and brought quite to ruin. And shall we then forgo these truths, which are far more near and dear unto us then our dearest souls, when we have thus long, thus constantly, thus abundantly professed them?

These, these are the orthodox and sweet dogmatical Resolutions, which our Martyrs blood have sealed, our first Reformers of Religion settled; our Ancestors embraced, our Artic • es confirmed; our Universities professed; our Church believed; our Ministers subscribed; our Protestant Kings, and Queens defended: our Preachers published; our Laity received; our Parliament particularly voted, owned, and protected: our Writers propagated, and professedly maintained against all Heretical oppugners whatsoever: (which they would never have done, had they been mere curious scoole-points, nicities, or needless speculations only, as some repute them:) and we our selves long since acknowledged, yea readily entertained as our own undoubted and professed Doctrines: and shall we then disclaim, or doubt them now? These are those blessed, gracious, and tutelary Doctrines, which have thus long guarded and secured both our Church and State: These are the Bulwarks which have a long time kept out Popery and Romish tyranny from; that have preserned peace and unity in our Church, which now is almost over-run with Popery and Arminianism, with sundry Errors and Diuisions, since these have fallen to decay, and lost their credit with us. These were the truths that secured us from the Spanish Armado in 88 • from the barbarous, unnatural, and infernal Powder-treason, in 1605. the very memory of which should make all Papists, Priests, & Jesuits, with their bloody Anti-Christian Religion which now creeps in upon us, forever execrable to all English hearts. These were the procurers of our ancient glory, and renown: of our prosperity and welfare, our victories and triumphs both by Sea and Land: these made us honorable, wealthy happy, and victorious for 60. years and upward; (and we had yet no doubt continued such, had we not of late revolted from them, and given harbor to those Popish, those pestilent Arminian errors, which have wasted both our Church and state, and plunged them into such a gulf of sundry miseries, as is like to swallow them up at once, unless the power of heaven prove their rescue:) and shall we then begin to waiue them, or forsake them now? These are the immortal seed which did beget us at first; these, the sincere milk that nourished us: these the strong meat that must corroborate us: these the celestial cordials which must comfort us in all our deiections: these the Ancre which must secure, and hold us up from sinking, in the midst of all our troubles: these the Armor that must shield us in all our spiritual combats: yea these are the Doctrines which must beget, and perfect grace within us: which must convert and save our souls: In these were we and ours borne; in these have we lived; (and if we ever hope for any grace or glory, peace or safety, any present or future happiness o • prosperity for our selves, or our posterities after us, in these let us, and ours live, and die.

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