The Protestant Religion Truly State and Justified, Part 22
The Four and Twentieth accuſed Point.
That God by his will and inevitable decree, hath ordained from all Eternity, who ſhall be Damned and who Saved.
Anſ. What a falſe Deceiver is this, that would make us believe, that this is proper to the Proteſtants, when it is the Common Doctrine not only of the Dominicans, but of the very Jeſuits themſelves, and all their Church.
1. None of them dare ſay, that men are Damned or Saved without Gods foreknowledge, nor againſt his abſolute will, by overcoming his Power.
2. None of them dare ſay, that this fore-knowledge of God was not from Eternity, but that he knew one day what he knew not before.
3. All that the Jeſuits themſelves ſay, is, that God decreed it upon this fore-knowledge, and that he hath a Scientia media, what will come to paſs, poſitis quibuſdam, if ſuch and ſuch things be done by man; and that this fore-knowledge in order of Nature is before the Decree, but both from Eternity. But Cardin Cameracenſis (Petrus de Aliaco,) hath irrefragably confuted this impoſing Priority and Poſteriority of act on God; tho' I think ſome Divine acts as denominated only Relatively from the order of Objects, may be ſo diſtinguiſhed.
4. In all this, we ſay not, that God hath by his will and decree ordained from Eternity, (or in time) that men ſhall ſin, or will and chooſe Evil, but only who ſhall be Damned for ſin, which God never willed or cauſed, but foreſaw; not as if he were an idle Spectator, but a willing ſuſpender of his own acts, ſo far as to leave Sinners to their ſelf-determining wills.
5. But God being the cauſe of Good, and Men and Devils of Evil, our Salvation is of him, and our Deſtruction of our ſelves; and therefore God decreeth not Men's Salvation or Sanctification, meerly on foreſight of our Faith, but decreeth our Faith it ſelf: Sin he permitteth, but Faith, he effecteth, and decreeth to Effect.
6. As for them that feign that we ſay, that God decreeth that ſome ſhall be Saved and others Damned however they Live; it is but the dictates of the Father of Lies: We ſay that God at once decreeth the End, and the Means; as he doth not decree that men ſhall live though they neither Eat nor Drink, nor that they ſhall have Corn, though they neither Plow nor Sow, but that they ſhall Eat and Drink, and live thereby; and that they ſhall Plow and Sow, and mannure the Soil, and ſo have Corn. So God doth at once decree, [that this and that man ſhall have the means of Grace, (eſpecially a Saviour and the Goſpel,) and ſhall faithfully uſe them, and be Sanctified by them, and ſincerely obey God, and overcome the World, the Fleſh and the Devil, and perſevere to the End, and that for Chriſts Merits he will give them the Grace of his Spirit, and pardon their Sins, and bring them to Glory.] All this is our Decree of God.
But he doth not decree that men ſhall ſin, that they may be Damned: For ſin is no Work of God, nor a means appointed by him for Men's Damnation, no more than a Righteous King doth make men Traytors or Murderers, that he may Hang them. But he juſtly denyeth his Grace to many that forfeit it by willful Reſiſtance, Diſobedience, and Contempt; though he take not the forfeiture of his Elect.
He is deceived and wrongeth God that maketh him the Author of Men's ſin: And ſo doth he that feigneth God to ſend his Son to redeem the World, and his Word and Miniſters to call them, and his Spirit to renew them, and all this at Random, not knowing whether it may not be all loſt, or leaving it chiefly to the Free-will of them, whoſe wills are contrarily inclined and vitiated? Whether Chriſt and all his Preparations ſhall be loſt?
The plain Chriſtian that holdeth but to theſe two points, that our Deſtruction is of our ſelves, but our help and Salvation of God, and that God is the firſt and chief cauſe of all good, and Men and Devils of all Evil, is liker to be wiſe with Sobriety and Safety, than the Ignorant Intruders into Gods Secrets, and the prating Calumniators that ſpeak Evil of the things which they underſtand not; and reproach thoſe that ſpeak not as Raſhly and Ignorantly as themſelves, even in ſome equivocal unexplained words
Methinks Papiſts ſhould be ſo kind to God, as ſeeing the Pope can tell who is a Damned Heretick, and to be kill'd, (even all that believe not in the Pope, or are not his Subjects,) and who is in Purgatory, and how long he ſhall ſtay there: Or how many years Torment the Pope can ſhorten: They ſhould allow God to know a little more, and that not as one whoſe Power and Grace is Conquered by impotent Worms, againſt his abſolute Will.