Animadversions on Doctor Heylins Quinquarticular History, Part 9
Dr. H. Page 6.
Calvin will revive the errors of Bardesanes and Priscillian, in charging all mens wicked actions on the Star… and Destiny, not positively and in terminis, I must needs say that, but so that he comes up close to them, to tantamount, ascribing that to the inevitable Decrees of Almighty God, which Bardesanes attributed to the power of Fate, Priscillian to the influence of Stars; For if God before all Eternity (as they plainly say,) did purpose and decree the fall of Adam, (Ut suâ defectione periret Adam, Calv. Inst. lib. 3. cap. 23. sect. 7.) there was in Adam a necessity of committing sin, because the Lord had so decreed it. If without consideration of the sin of man, he hath by his determinate sentence ordained so many millions of men to everlasting damnation, and that too necessariò & inevitabiliter, as they please to phrase it, he must needs preordain them to sin also; there being (as themselves confess) no way unto the end but by the means.
Ans. This is an heavy charge, and had need be well and clearly proved, or else the Doctor will be thought to have little of that, which is the bond of perfection, Charity: Let us examine his proof. The conclusion he is to infer is this, that Calvin doth ascribe all mens wicked actions to the inevitable Decrees of Almighty God. What are his premises? He is no Syllogistical man, and therefore I will not tie him to the strict rules of argumentation; but examine what he saith as I find it. If God before all eternity (as they plainly say) did purpose and decree the fall of Adam, there was in Adam a necessity of sinning, because the Lord had so decreed it.
1. Who are these they? Before there was no mention of any one save Calvin ▪ Is he now multiplied into these two, Iohn, Calvin, as once Luther was into Martin, and Luther?
2. How do these Iohn, Calvin say plainly, that God did before all eternity decree? Had it been said, that he decreed before all time, or from all eternity, this had been a plain speech; but how any decree should be made before all eternity, which hath no beginning, that is not plain: A man had need have Dr. Heylins wit to understand it.
To the thing; God did purpose and decree the fall of our Father Adam from all eternity: What is the fault in this proposition? Is this it, that the Decree is said to be made from all eternity? Why surely there are no temporary decrees. Is it that the decree of God passed upon the fall of Adam? Certainly the decrees of the Almighty do reach every thing that hath happened, or that shall happen, be it good or evil: the very delivering of Christ into the hands of them that Crucified him is said to be, by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, Act. 2.23. Well, but hence it will follow, that there was in Adam a necessity of committing sin. Verily a necessity in Adam is a phrase somewhat odd and uncouth. If the meaning of it should prove to be no more than this, that it was necessary Adam should fall or commit sin, I must grant this would follow, but see no imaginable absurdity in it. Imagine God had never decreed to permit the fall of Adam, Suppose him only to have foreseen it; hence will follow, that it was necessary Adam should fall: But this is necessitas infallibilitatis, or consequentis, not necessitas coactionis, or consequentiae. Let the Doctor prove that any other necessity follows upon the decree; let him prove that we Calvinists do fabricate any decree, necessitating and compelling Adam to fall, whether he would or no, and I will yield him the whole cause. But he hath farther to say; If without consideration of the sin of man, he (God) hath by his determinate sentence ordained so many millions of men to everlasting damnation, and that too necessariò & inevitabiliter, as they please to phrase it, he must needs preordain them to sin; there being no way to the end, but by the means.
Who these they are I know not, nor have any direction to find them out, but a blind one in the Margin, v. Synod. Rem. which I am not Scholar expert enough to make use of; If the Synodalia Remonstrantium be intended, why is not the page in which those words occur quoted? Can the Historian imagine his Readers do so abound in leisure, as to read over a Book of so great bulk as the Synodalia, to find out one phrase? Such an imagination is not worthy of him. To damn is a judiciary act, If any should affirm that this is without respect to, or consideration of mans sin, I'le be no patron of his. Dr. Twisse (who is wont to speak as high as any that ever espoused the Contra-remonstrants quarrel,) though he hold, that God hath made no Law according to which he proceeds, in giving grace unto some and denying it unto others, yet openly and willingly and frequently professeth, in his Latine and English works, that God hath made a Law acording to which he proceeds, in distribution of rewards and punishments, and according to this Law he decreed from everlasting to proceed, in pronouncing the sentence of salvation and damnation on mankind.
Answ. to Hor. part first page 38. Reprobation doth signifie either a purpose of denying grace, or a purpose of inflicting damnation; and each may be considered, either as touching the act of Gods Decree, or as touching the things decreed: As touching the things decreed, we say,
1. That God decreed, of his meer good pleasure, to deny unto some the grace of Faith and Repentance, for the curing of that natural impenitence and infidelity which is found in all, without any motive cause hereunto found in one more than in another.
2. As touching the inflicting of damnation, we say that God decreed to inflict damnation on some, not out of his meer pleasure, but meerly for their final perseverance in sin without repentance.
I shall conclude all that relates to this matter of Manicheism and Bardesanism with two sayings of the Right Reverend Father in God Iohn Davenant Bishop of Salisbury, in his answer to Gods Love to Mankind; The one Pag. 73. If any shall go about to set mans will at liberty, and to tie up short the decreeing and determining Will of God, as if this had not the determining stroke amongst all possible evil actions or events, which shall infallibly be and which shall infallibly not be, he may avoid the suspicion of Stoicism or Manicheism, but he will hardly avoid the suspicion of Atheism; for the greater number of mens actions being wicked and evil, if these come into act, without Gods determinate counsel and decree, humane affairs are more over-ruled by mans will than by Gods. The other, Pag. 97. If any Writers among the Protestants have made the Creation of the non Elect, a means by God himself subordinated unto their damnation, and the damnation of such an end aimed at and intended by God, and consequently the means of mens damnation (viz. sin…ul corruption and voluntary rebellion) procured or wrought by God as the Author of it, they deserve rather to be branded than patronized by any judicious Divine: yet it becometh Orthodox Divines to be careful, as well in maintaining the free and spiritual mercy of God, in giving Faith, Repentance, and perseverance to the Elect, as in maintaining the Justice of God in the punishment and damnation of the non-Elect. The defenders of conditionate Predestination, may suppose they clear themselves well in the later, but we are sure they stick in the Semi-pelagian Bryars as concerning the former. For if God upon the fore-sight of mens faith and perseverance be induced to predestinate them, Gods Predestination is no cause at all of Faith, or perseverance, or any saving grace; this prevision not causing things, but supposing them already produced by other causes.
Hence I might pass to the Doctors Historiola, concerning the Pelagians, but I think it not amiss to digress a little, and note something concerning another Heresie, of which he takes no notice. There have been a vile Sect of men, who …obbed God of his Praescience, as to all future contingencies. That Cicero should be of this mind (as he was if we may believe S. Austin) is not so strange; 'tis more to be wondred at, that the poor blind Heathens should think aright of God and his attributes in any thing, than that in some things they should judge amiss of them. But that any, upon whom the light of the Gospel did shine, should be so absurdly impious is marveilous. Yet that Socinus was of this mind is not denied by any: His words are plain, praelec. cap. 11. Cum igitur nulla ratio, nullus Sacrarum literarum locus sit, ex quo aperte colligi possit, Deum omnia quae fiunt scivisse antequam fierent, concludendum est, minime a nobis asserendam esse istam Dei praescientiam; praesertim, cum & rationes non paucae, & Sacra Testimonia non desint, unde eam plane negandam esse appareat. Of the same mind is his Scholar Smalcius Dis. 12. de causa peccati, in Thes. 3. as also Crellius lib. de Deo & Attr. cap. 24. pag. 201, 204, 212. This is an errour against which we have as many Arguments, as there are Prophecies in the Old or New Testament, and had we no Prophecies▪ yet from reason it were easie to prove, that God were not God, if he did not foreknow all futurities. Confiteri esse Deum & negare praescium …uturorum, apertissima insania est, saith S. Augustine; 'tis a manifest madness to acknowledge a God, and to deny his Prescience; so manifest a madness, that the Remonstrants, who are wont to follow Socinus in many of h…s errours, do forsake him in this. Episcopius himself, though he profess, that were it not for the irrefragable Authority of Divine predictions, he should incline to the opinion of them who deny prescience; adding, that if Praescience of humane actions be not attributed to God, we may the more easily rid our selves of sundry difficulties that occur concerning the Divine Providence: yet upon the account of Divine predictions, he is content to let God have his knowledge of things future; but it is but tantisper dum res clarius liqueat. Vid. Beverovicium de termino vitae, pag. 81. So as with Episcopius it is but a probationer attribute, and should be dismissed, if an answer could be found out for that Argument drawn from Divine Predictions or Prophecies: In the mean time he hath most plainly determined, in the fourth Book of his Institutions, cap. 18, that it is not necessary to the attaining of eternal Salvation, that a man should either know or believe, that the foreknowledge of future contingents doth agree to God. I think that Arminianism doth take away the foundation of Gods Praescience, there being nothing but the Will and Decree of God appointing and ordaining, that a thing, in its own nature contingent, shall be, which can make it certainly knowable or future; yet this Divine Decree the Arminians will at no hand acknowledge. I grant divers have taken pains to find out another bottom and foundation of Praescience besides the Divine Will or Decree, but to very little purpose. Never could I in Iesuit, Lutheran, or Arminian, meet with any thing in this point, that would satisfie a mind inquisitive after truth. Some tell me of the Idaeas in the Divine intellect, and say that by these God may know future contingents. Idaeas upon the reasons and authorities alledged by the Schoolmen, I am willing to admit; but it is to me unimaginable, that an Idaea should represent the futurity of that, which in its own nature is meerly possible, and so indifferent either to be or not be: Who ever found in his mind an …, representing whether his House were to be built? More I might say, were I not prevented by the Learned Ho…nebeck, Socin. confut. l. 2. p. 343, 344. Others tell me of a real presence of things unto God from all eternity: Which real presence if one should deny, I see not how it could be proved; If it should be granted, I know not how on that Divine Praescience could be founded: For the proof of both these I refer to Hornbeck, l. 2. p. 344, 345. But I am most of all unsatisfied with the Jesuits Scientia media: Well may I call it the Jesuits Scientia media; for Molina boasts that he was the first inventer of it, and doubtless unto him it doth owe its Original, or else to Fonseca: The greatest antiquity it can pretend to, is less than an hundred years; for Fonseca tells us, that in the year 1566 he propounded this, as the best way of reconciling free-will and grace, but thought not meet to publish it till 1596, in which interval, namely about the year 1588, Molina published his Discourse de concordia liberi Arbitrii & Gratiae, in which he flieth to this Scientia media, professing, that it had not been to his knowledge delivered by any before. If it had not been found These Papers were written about 1663.out till 1660, I should not reject it upon that account; Let's hear what it is, That by which God, before any act of his own will, did know which way the will of the Creature would turn it self, on supposition that he afford such helps and concurses; and by which he would have known the contrary, had the will made use of its liberty to turn the other way. Against such a conditionate, middle or mixt knowledge ('tis called by all three names,) our Reformed Divines, English and Transmarine, have brought such Arguments as never were answered, never can be answered. The truth is, this kind of knowledge is so unhappy an invention, that it brings in those very things, for the avoiding whereof it was first devised: It was excogitated, that the liberty of the will might not be taken away, and that God might not be made the Author of sin; yet a Scholar of Voetius, hath undertaken to shew, and doth prove, that this conditionate knowledge takes away all freedom from God and Men, necessarily brings in the Stoical fatality, and makes God the Author of sin; see Voet. Disp. Selec. Vol. 1. pag. 331, 332, &c. I desire any man to try how he can answer Doctor Twisse his Argument, tending to prove that it is impossible to assign any other cause, of a things passing out of the rank of possible into the rank of future, than the Will of Gods Decree. There is a late nibler at this Learned Doctor, who had so much wit in his wrath as not to attempt the answering of his Arguments, but yet (which is his way of disputing) rails against this proposition, that Prescience of a thing future, must needs presuppose a Predestination, or a predetermination of it, as if it contained a senseless errour. foreign, p. 128. The senselesness lies in this, because they who make use of this sentence seem to think, that God could decree to do something before he knew what he would decree to do; If God did predetermine before he foreknew, he predetermined at a venture he knew not what: God knew all things, which yet he cannot be conceived to have done, if any thing can be conceived before his knowledge, page 129. There's in these Lines an Argument couched, but not of the Gentlemans own making; it had been before used by Suarez, and it is answered, satisfactorily answered, by that Scholar of Voetius, whom I before commended, Selec. Disp. pag. 394. We grant it would be blasphemously irrational, to say, that God decrees he knows not what, but we deny that it will follow that he decrees he knoweth not what, if he know not a thing as future before he hath by his decree made it future. We deny not the received order betwixt the acts and objects of the understanding and will, but we say that the Scientia which in signo rationis precedes the decree, is the Scientia simplicis intelligentiae, not the Scientia visionis.
This unhappy Disputant thought that because all Gods praescience is science, therefore all his science is prescience; But he is now to take notice that there is a twofold knowledge,
1. Natural, by which God knows himself, and all things possible, in his own essence, as a necessary cause of them: This knowledge in order of nature doth precede any act of Gods will; It had agreed to him, though he had never made any decree at all concerning things ad extra: But this knowledge is at no hand to be called foreknowledge.
2. There is a knowledge which is called Libera, and this must necessarily suppose the act of the will, as the very name doth imply; Unto this doth praescience belong. We say that God could not from all eternity have a certain foreknowledge that a thing contingent should come to pass in time, if he had not decreed the thing to come to pass in time; but though God hath decreed all actions that are future, yet according to Austins distinction, decrevit ut bona eveniant ipso faciente, mala ipso permittente. This laid down, I shall consider one argument, by which Mr. P. goes about to prove that prescience precedes the decrees of election and reprobation, and so dismiss him, as a Writer fitter, for my pity than con…utation. Thus it is laid down foreign. pag. 129. If Gods praescience preceded not his decrees of Election and reprobation, there was not a moment in which he was free to elect or reprobate; for the Freedom to choose must needs precede the Act of choice, and to deny God his freedom in his Elections, is as impious as irrational. This is a ratiocination as loose as ever I read, and yet it hath been my unhappiness to be constrained, of late, to read over the Pamphlets of men that made no pretence to Logick. Mr. P. might assure himself any Calvinist would deny his consequence. If praescience precede not Gods decrees of Election and reprobation, then was there not a moment in Eternity, in which he was free to Elect or reprobate; How hath he proved this consequence? Why, with this reason, Because freedom to choose, must needs precede the act of choice. Were this reason put into an Enthymem (the most proper argumentation to prove the consequence of a conditional proposition by) it would be ashamed of it self; though perhaps Mr. P. might not be ashamed of it: Freedom to choose must needs precede the Act of Choice, Ergo, Unless praescience precede Gods decrees of Election and reprobation, there was not a moment in Eternity, in which he was free to Elect or reprobate. Baculus stat in angulo, Ergo, cras pluet may from henceforth be forgotten, and this Enthymem of Mr. P. be made use of, as the example of an absurd unconcluding argumentation. The best Apology I am able to frame for it is, that Mr. T. P. thought that Gods praescience did signifie Gods feeedom to Elect, or reprobate.