Chapter 14

CHAP. XIIII.

The Law discovereth the disease, but heals it not. 2. How nature begins, and the spirit acts. 3. We, not God, in withdrawing his grace must be the culpable cause of non conversion. 4. Some truth we must first physically hear and consider, before we believe.

Knowledge, or the commanding Law strengthens the wicked desire by forbidding it. A strong stream runs with more strength that a dike of stone and clay stands in its way: I know not (says Augustine) epist. contra Hilarium 89, &c. de spir. & lit. 4. how that which is desired becomes more pleasant, because it is forbidden: Nescio quo enim modo hoc ipsum quod concupiscitur, fit jucundius, dum vetatur; the letter of the Law or bare knowledge meets with unrenewed nature, and then a severe master and a froward servant make no work between them: the Law came in, that sin might abound (Romans 5). Jubet (Lex) magis quam juvat, docet morbum esse, non sanat; imo ab eo quod non sanatur, augetur, ut attentius & sollicitius gratiae medicina quaeratur; The Law commands, but it helps not, it teacheth the disease to be there, but heals it not.

There are two extremities here we love on the one hand; the barbarous opus operatum, the literal deed done in praying; the charm of the external work is by hand, if God sell not the blessing: yet I have blown words of praying up to Heaven, and told down the price. It's heavenly wisdom to go about praying and other means not as acts of trading for our nighest ends, but as acts of serving and glorifying of God, though no thing should redound to us: but we use praying, and hearing, as a man does his horse, or his ship, all for self-use and self-ends. Ah, can the man charm the blessing of the Holy Ghost with bare words, when scarce the literal attention goes along? And here our idolatry says, I buy, and God will not sell; I plow, and God binds up the clouds: the Lord pays not the reward of a rich harvest, to the merit of plowing on the other hand. Let ordinances, reading, praying, and hearing of the Bible sleep until the spirit blow: and we forget it is not the Spirit of the Father, which works without the word and the testimonies, the tools of the Father; is this God's Spirit or a delusion? Plow not, sow not until it be first harvest; blow not at the fire until it first flame boldly: pray not until the Spirit breathe strongly, but first give words, I pray you, to be a lodging to the spirit to breathe in. Let nature stir first in the using of means; first bow the knee, stretch out the hands; should the Spirit from above first bow the knee? And first physically act upon the hands to lift them up? No, nature begins in its order before the heat and fire of the spirit come; flaming goes not before smoking, but contrarily smoking leads the way to flaming: the flaming of faith, of love, of paining desires in their spiritual vigor, go not before stirring of the lips, and lifting of the eyes to Heaven to pray. That is no more true than refreshing and cooling of the heart go before eating and drinking. Will you say, I will not pray, while first the spirit flame, I will not hear, while first I believe, and I will not lay up the promises in the heart, while first the heart burns in heat of love with the promises? You then say, I will not throw about the key until the door be first opened; I will not hear the word until the Lord give me faith; whereas the way of God is, that faith as the end, comes by hearing, as the means leading to the end (Romans 10 and Galatians 3). You received the Spirit by the hearing of faith; then of necessity our hearing and lending attention to Christ, by the outer entry the ear, must go before faith as the mean before the end, whereas faith comes by hearing. As vital heat is stirred up by running, so it is true, some inward burnings and flamings of spirit begin like smoking before flaming (Psalm 39:1; Psalm 45:1; Acts 17), and then follows spiritual acting of praising, preaching, praying, in which case there is, as it were, in the soul a fever, and an inward boiling of a pot that must run over, or new wine that must break the vessel, and force vent, so that silence or no acting must torment and pain the poor man. But that is not ordinary; for the set way is that we set to acting, and the spirit strikes in as he thinks fit, and the believer is to blow and stir the fire under the ashes, as if he were seeking the wind, and must stir and dig some fire and warmness out of the letter, and let the spirit blow and flame as he will. If any say a preparing of the heart goes well before acting, that is true also; if any say God commands not simple hearing, but hearing mixed with faith, whatever truth were in that, as hearing without faith is sinful formality, yet he commands in a divine order, that we should hear to the end we may believe; and the Lord commands not that we may believe, that we may hear, as nature ordains not growing and nourishing, that the living creature may eat, and sleep; but by the contrary, nature appoints eating and sleeping that we may grow, and be nourished. If any say the Lord commands not hearing as to the substance of the act, but saving, spiritual, and humble trembling at the Word, and hearing in faith; and this he commands to be done in believing and trembling at the Word, in the same act, in which he commands hearing. It shall be denied that in the order of begetting faith, this is necessary, that they ever be one and the same act: the Lord preached to Adam (Genesis 3:15), the seed of the woman shall break the head of the serpent. Adam by the law of God, of nature, was first to hear and consider this first Gospel-truth, and then to believe it, and receive it in faith: he was a rational and moral agent in believing, and was not obliged in one and the same to hear and believe, but as a rational agent he was first to hear, and then to believe, after consideration of the Gospel now heard and received in the ear and mind. And the like may be said of Pagans at the first hearing of the Gospel, they must hear and literally consider the letter of the Gospel before they believe. As for the Lord's commanding to believe, to pray, to read, to praise, sure we are to begin our duty of natural stirring in these acts, though in another kind of cause, God must first act us thereunto: nor is the Lord's stirring of us by omnipotent grace, enjoined to us, but we are commanded to do our duty, and to pray for his drawing that we may run: but yet by order of nature, we are to do our parts first in our physical way before we feel the stirring of divine influences.

Obj. He cannot pray, he cannot believe, and yet God commands him to believe.

Answ. But his cannot (as Mr. Fenner says) does not hinder. If a wicked man's cannot only did hinder him, he might excuse himself before the tribunal of Christ; Lord, you know, I did my best, I would have been ruled by your Word, but I could not; I would have been humbled and reformed better than I was, but I could not: For the culpable only hindering cause is (Proverbs 1:29): They hated knowledge, the fear of the Lord [illegible] they chose not. They would none of my counsel, they despised all my rebuke. These four acts of wicked will are set down, as the only faulty cause of their non-conversion, and their not hearkening to wisdom's cry. But if God had given efficacious grace, which he, out of his absolute liberty denied, certainly they would have been converted: true; and who denies that? All that have heard, and learned of the Father come to me (John 6:45). If all such come and none miscarry, then you would have come also to Christ. Surely after I was turned, I repented (Jeremiah 31:19); but that is the cause of non-conversion physical, and leaves not the blame on the holy Lord; for the wicked (will not) yet remains, and the conscience lays not the blame there, but loves to have a physical bar of non-conversion, to block up the way of moral non-conversion, and four times subscribes and consents to the absence and want of the Lord's saving influence; therefore except the unbeliever could say, I had a desire, hic & nunc, to abandon my lusts and to believe, only this hinders; God refused the sowing of a gracious power in me, to believe, pray, repent; and as an austere master, he reaps and exacts believing and praying from a man who does his best, and all that in reason and justice can be craved of a man; lays upon me, threatenings, commandments, punishments, who am only fettered against my will from obeying.

Hence faithful Mr. Fenner pag. 8. the (moral and faulty) reason why the wicked do not repent, and come out of their sins, is not because they cannot (though they cannot) but because they will not. His reasons are,

1. The wicked think they have power, and yet they will not do according to their thoughts; what is the reason they hope to repent on their dead beds, but because they think they have power? Or at least they are able to beg power of Jesus Christ. Now by their own thoughts, God will convince them that they do not give over their sins.

2. You do not so much as try whether you can do or not: when a Master bids a Servant carry a sack of corn to the Mill, I cannot, says he; but cannot you try, says his master, cannot you go about it? No, he will not try; why, then he is willful: if his master should see him sweating and striving to carry it, it were something, then he will say he stuck at a cannot; but when he will not be at the pains to try, he sticks at a will not; pag. 10. God offers the good motions of power, I will help you, and I will enable you, and you will not be helped. Hearken to the sound of the trumpet, but they said, they will not hearken (Jeremiah 6:17). O, says you, I do hear the word, and I cannot hear it better; I do pray daily, and I cannot pray better; thus you retort upon God, as the unprofitable servant, Lo, here you have what is yours; lo, here is the best faith your spirit helps me to, here is the best obedience, that your power enabled me to do, &c. lo, there you have that is yours, you helped me with no more.

3. God gives you a talent, a new power: has God given you eyes, you have more power to glorify him, than he that has none — give account for your wit; Lord I have contrived businesses and bargains with it, I have jested, quipped, been merry with it; but why would you not be witty for God, and for the good of your soul?

4. The more power you have to repent, the more your will is against it; — the more your righteousness should increase, it goes the more away: like the dew, the more the Sun rises, the more it vanishes away: like many, the more preaching the farther off.

5. Your cannot is a voluntary cannot. I cannot give to the poor, says you; yes, you had once lands, and means, and comings in, but you have spent all at the ale-house.

6. You are contented with your cannot; you cannot be holy, and you are contented not to be; you cannot crucify your lust, and you are contented with this cannot; no, you would not be able — my people love to have it so (Jeremiah 5:31), &c. A man can do more good than he does, though not in a gracious manner; yes, and there be degrees more or less in both matter and manner: yes, and this cannot is the natural cannot of a broken will; Lot preached to Sodom, and they repent not; Jonah preached to Nineveh, and they repent, though not soundly; Christ a greater than Jonah preaches to the Pharisees, and they repent neither soundly, nor any other way. Sure more might be done in using of means, though not without some common grace: but so long as wicked will has a nearest influence in all sinful omissions and transgressions, there is no place left to this; O God give me no power, nor habits, nor influences; but would you have done all required to be done with power, habits, and influences, by your poor wicked wills? No, there is a wicked will not which is a pull-back, and a sinful obstruction to gracious actings. But to say nothing of this more; may not believers so far command influences of grace, as that they have in their power far off or near hand, in potentiâ proximâ vel remotâ, sufficient grace to believe and be saved? See Cornelius Jansenius, tom. 3. de grat. Chr. Salv. lib. 3. c. who cites Vasquez. 1 part disp. 97. Suarez, lib. 4. de praedest. c. 3. num. 19, 20. But it is required that the party, non ponat obicem, lay not a block in the way of the Lord calling him: and if he does not, God shall undoubtedly convert him, say these men; For if God should deny sufficient help of grace, especially to infants upon an intention to damn them, (says Theo. Smizing. tom. 2. tract. 3. disp. 6. de provid. num. 179.) such a denial should be against the Covenant, that the Father has made with the Son, that he has accepted the death of the Son for the reconciliation of all mankind, and their redemption, none excepted; and therefore he should.

Does a wrong to Christ, and does a wrong to all mankind, and sins against the justice of his fidelity, if he should deny sufficient help of grace upon an intention of damning them for original sin.

Such a sufficient grace is due to us, not of ourselves, but in Christ; yes, but by this Christ has merited sufficient grace to all; and why not pardon of original sin to all? and life eternal to all? Should it not be a wrong to all, and a wrong to Jesus Christ, and a wrong to free will, if such a meritorious purchase of grace be made to all? Why are they called by nature the heirs of wrath? For by this, all the Pagans, and Heathens by grace, are also the reconciled heirs of glory, the ransomed of the Lord.

Why do not the Apostles first reveal the drawing and heart-breaking motive of obedience? Christ has died for you all, and reconciled you to God from the womb.

What news are these? You all are in that blessed Covenant, passed between the Father and the Son, and Christ has given a dear ransom of blood to purchase grace to carry you either to Heaven or Hell: but he has purchased for you no glory, except by the sweating of free will you make it your actual purchase.

The Scripture tells us nowhere that Jesus Christ died to break the Decrees of Election and Reprobation; and that Christ has obtained that no man should be damned for original sin, as many as die in Adam (Romans 5), as many are justified and live in Christ, both the life of grace and of glory.

This is the far more wide and broad covenant of grace, that the Gospel if men use the light of nature well, (who are, and ever has been in all ages since the creation the greatest part of mankind) shall be sent to them, and all shall be put in such a capacity to be saved by Christ and justified in him, as Adam was in, to be justified and saved by the works of the Law.

Why does original sin brook the name of sin, of iniquity, transgression, and a sin for which all die, as (Psalm 51:5; Romans 5; Romans 7; Romans 8; Hebrews 12; &c.) which indeed is no sin, but pardoned, taken away in all mankind, and which brings damnation to no man; for in justice, none can be condemned to death temporal more than to death eternal, for that which is no sin at all? And such is original sin, say they.

It is without all authority of Scripture, that the natural actings of Pagans are so washed in the blood of Christ that they never heard of, that they are in their actings meriting the Gospel either of congruity or decency, or of common justice, or of free promise, or by some infallible connexion between the one and the other, or by Christ's merits. True it is, the Gospel, and effectual calling in the Gospel and faith, and all spiritual blessings are bestowed on the Elect in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:3; 2 Peter 1:3).

God works in us what is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ (Hebrews 13:2).

Grace and peace come from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus as the meritorious cause (1 Corinthians 1; Galatians 1). Frans. Cumel. disp. 2. ar. in primam 2. concl. 5. pag. 244. testifies that the best of them is like a sharp briar; for he with others holds, that grace is given to them who lay no impediment in the way of God's effectual calling, and he has it in his power to lay no impediment, because he can eschew all sins against the Law of nature, and such sins are the only impediments that hinder the effectual calling of God.

But he makes no mention of Christ, his death and merit, which is the only meritorious cause of effectual calling of the chosen. A spiritual soul loves the strongly prevailing power of Christ's calling, the more strongly that it is a work of saving grace, and of the grace of Christ (Romans 3:14).

The man is equally Lord of heaven and hell who has salvation in his power by this way, as men have by the Jesuits' way; but all men by this way have in their power this prevening grace: for if they do what in them is, and eschew sins against the law of nature, which Cumel says they may do, (for such sins are the only impediment of grace) they may be saved; not by merit, as the Jesuits say, but by free grace, as Dominicans say. But as to the matter Cumel conspires with the Jesuits; call it merit, or give it another name, it is against the Scriptures to teach that all the Americans, Brasilians and Heathen have the prevening grace of God and salvation in their power.

And 2. That though all men may lay an impediment to the prevening grace of God, yet they may fulfil the law of nature, and eschew all mortal sin, which if they do, infallibly the Lord bestows prevening grace upon the Americans; for the Scripture says, We are dead in sins and trespasses (Ephesians 2), that we cannot come to Christ except the Father draw us (John 6:44), that the wisdom of the flesh is neither subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be (Romans 8:7), and that we by nature cannot understand the things of God (1 Corinthians 2:13, 14; Matthew 16:16, 17), nor think a good thought (2 Corinthians 3) as of ourselves; nor speak a good word (1 Corinthians 12), nor bring forth good fruit, do any good, more than a branch can bring forth fruit being cut off the tree (John 15:4, 5), or than men can gather wine-grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles (Matthew 7:16, 17, 18; Luke 6:43, 44), and therefore far less can Heathens earn by their sweating and labouring effectual calling and salvation. Sure then salvation and prevening grace of God should be in him that wills and runs, and not in God that shows mercy; and it is but an oiling of Arminians and Pelagians to tell that salvation is not in him that runs by way of merit, yet it is in him, and shall infallibly be given to the runner and willer, who by free-will may purchase both; and all Americans have in them to run and will. Dominicans therefore in this darken free grace as much as Jesuits, when they tell us, men are saved not by the merit of free-will, yet it is in the power of the free-will of Heathens to purchase influences of saving grace; to put Heathens and Indians, and all men safe at heaven's gates, what is this but to say, The King has made no covenant that all his Courtiers shall be made Kings, yet he has passed his royal word that if they bring him a flower in May (which they may easily do) they shall, vere, truly receive a Kingdom? This is as great an advancing of free will, and an abusing of free grace, as Pelagians ever dreamed of. For Prosper said the same of the Massilienses, Universis hominibus propitiationem, quae est in sanguine Christi, esse propositam, ut quicunque ad fidem & ad Baptismum accedere voluerint, salvi esse possunt. 16. Pro universo autem (dictitant Massilienses) humano genere mortuum esse, Dom. Nostrum Jesum Christum, & neminem prorsus à Redemptione sanguinis ipsius exceptum, etiamsi omnem hanc vitam alienissimâ ab eo mente pertranseat; quia ad homines pertineat divinae misericordiae sacramentum (Baptismus nempe) ut recte Cornelius Jansenius, Tom. 1. de haeres. pelag. lib. 8. c. 3. &c. itaque quantum ad Deum pertinet omnibus paratam vitam aeternam. Et Faustus, lib. 1. de gra. & lib. ar. cap. 16. Dominum Nostrum Jesum Christum aiunt (diceret si vixisset nostris temporibus Calvinistae, sed contrarium Jesuitae & Dominicani, Arminiani, Pelagiani, Sociniani) humanam carnem non pro omnibus sumpsisse, nec pro omnibus mortuum esse. See Cornelius Jansenius, ib. to whose writings Jesuits and Dominicans shall never answer. The Massilienses cared not (as Corn. Janse. tom. 1. de haeres. pelag. l. 8. c. 17.) for the word of merit, if man's will went before God's grace. Epist. Prosper & Hilar. Ut ideo quis adjuvetur, quia voluit, non ideo quia adjuvatur, velit. And Cassianus denied all merit of condignity, and said, that the labor of our fasting, watching, &c. was not worthy of the grace of conversion and of salvation, and yet he held the merit of congruity to be as needful to go before our conversion. So Hilarius says, that Cassianus taught, that by seeking or praying, and searching and knocking, we came to the grace of conversion; so that the Massilienses and Augustine, while he followed their error, thought faith not to be the gift of God, but that a merit of impetration, and of knocking and praying went before conversion, and that men obtained conversion and justification by prayer and faith, so that faith is not a gift of God, as Augustine thought, when he did yet stick in the errors of the Massilienses, hence under the name of an occasion or color they hide merit; for as Jansenius says, God has by the good works and holy dispositions that go before grace, aliquam occasionem sive colorem, cur non irrationabiliter, some occasion or color by which, not without reason, and in no blind way, by a fatal decree without consulting man's will, he gives grace to one rather than to another; and this is the Jesuits and Arminians way. God shall not be a wise and rational agent, but act blindly (says Cassianus) and unjustly (say our Arminians) if he give not saving grace, and influences of grace upon the dominion and disposing of man's free-will; now add to this, that the Massilienses said, as Hilarius and Prosper witness, God did predestinate to glory such only as he foresaw before the world was, should believe and persevere to the end; and that God will have all and every one to be saved; and that God bestows grace upon all and every man; and Pelagians and Jesuits shall find a market for merits; and men shall be lords and carvers of heaven and hell, and stewards absolute, and sovereign of their own salvation and damnation. What more can be said to blow up and make proud silly free-will?