Thirty-Six Sermons, Letter 1
Dr. Pierce Dean of Salisbury, his Letter to Mr. Walton.
Good Mr. Walton,
AT my return to this place, I made a yet stricten search after the Letters long ago sent me from our most excellent Dr. Sanderson: before the happy Restoration of the King and Church of England to their several Rights; in one of which Letters more especially, he was pleas'd to give me a Narrative, both of the file and the Progress, and reasons also, as well of his younger, as of his last and …iper Judgment; touching the famous Points controverted between the Calvinian and the Arminians, as they are commonly (though unjustly and unskilfully) mis…alled on either side.
The whole Letter I allude to, does consist of several sheets, where of a good part has been made public… long ago by the most learned, most judicious, most pious Dr. Hammond; (to whom I sent it both for his private, and for the publick satisfaction, if he thought fit), in his excellent Book, intituled [A Pacifick Discourse of God's Grace and Decrees, in full accordance with Dr. Sanderson:] To which discourse I refer you for an account of Dr. Sanderson, and the History of his Thoughts in his own hand writing; wherein I sent it to West…ood, as I received it from Boothby Pannel. And although the whole Book (printed in the year 1660. and reprinted since with his other Tracts in Folio) is very worthy of your perusal; yet for the Work you are about, you shall not have need to read more at present, than from the 8th. to the 23d page, and as far as the end of §. 33. There you will find in what year the excellent man, whose life you write, became a Master of Arts. How his first reading of Learned Hooker had been occasioned by some Puritanical Pamphlets; and how good a preparative he found it for his reading of Calvin's Institutions, the honour of whose name (at that time especially) gave such credit to his Errors. How he erred with Mr. Calviń (whilst he took things upon trust) in the Sublapsarian way. How being chosen to be a Clerk of the Convocation for the Diocess of Lincoln, 1625. He reduced the Quinquarticular Controversie into five Schemes or Tables; and thereupon discerned a necessity of quitting the Sublapsarian way (of which he had before a better liking) as well as the Supralapsarian, which he could never fancy. There you will meet with his two weighty Reasons against them both; and find his happy change of Iudgment to have been ever since the year 1625. even 34 years before the world either knew, or (at least) took notice of it. And more particularly his Reasons for rejecting Dr. Twiss (or the way He walks in) although his acute, and very learned and ancient Friend.
I now proceed to let you know from Dr.Sir, I pray note, That all that follows in the Italian Character, are Dr. Sanderson's own Words, excellently worthy, but no where else extant; and commend him as much as any thing you can say of him. T. P. Sanderson's own hand, which was never printed (and which you can hardly know from any, unless from his Son, or from my self) That when that Parliament was broken up, and the Convocation therewith dissolved, a Gentleman of his Acquaintance, by occasion of some Discourse about these Points, told him of a Book not long before published at Paris (A. D. 1623.) by a †Arriba.Spanish Bishop, who had undertaken to clear the Differences in the great Controversie De Concordiâ Gratiae & Liberi Arbitrarij. And because his Friend perceived he was greedily desirous to see the Book; he sent him one of them containing the four first Books of twelve which he intended then to publish. When I had read (says Dr. Sanderson in the following words, of the same Letter) his Epistle Dedicatory to the Pope (Greg. 15.) he spake so highly of his own invention, that I then began rather to suspect him for a Mountebank, than to hope I should find satisfaction from his performances. I found much confidence, and great pomp of words, but little matter as to the main Knot of the Business, other than had been said an hundred times before, to wit, of the co-existence of all things past, present, and future in mente divina realiter ab aeterno, which is the subject of his whole third Book; only he interpreteth the word realiter so, as to import not only praesentialitatem objectivam (as others held before him) but propriam & actualem existentiam. Yet confesseth 'tis hard to make this intelligible. In his fourth Book he endeavours to declare a twofold manner of God's working ad extra; the one sub ordine Praedestinationis, of which Eternity is the proper measure; the other sub ordine Gratiae, whereof Time is the measure. And that God worketh fortiter in the one (though not irresistibiliter) as well as suaviter in the other, wherein the Free-will hath his proper working also. From the Result of his whole performance I was confirmed in this Opinion, That we must acknowledge the work of both (Grace and Freewill) in the conversion of a sinner. And so likewise in all other events, the Consistency of the infallibility of God's fore-knowledge at least (though not with any absolute, but conditional Predestination) with the liberty of man's will, and the contingency of inferiour causes and effects. These, I say, we must acknowledge for the foreign: But for the foreign, I thought it bootless for me to think of comprehending it. And so came the two Acta Synodalia Dordrectana to stand in my Study, only to fill up a room to this day.
And yet see the restless curiosity of man. Not many years after, to wit A. D. 1632. out cometh Dr. Twiss his Vindiciae Gratiae; a large Volume purposely writ against Arminius. And then notwithstanding my former resolution, I must needs be medling again. The respect I bore to his person and great learning, and the long acquaintance I had …ad with him in Oxford, drew me to the reading of that whole Book. But from the reading of it (for I read it through to a syllable) I went away with many and great dissatisfactions. Sundry things in that Book I took notice of, which brought me into a greater dislike of his Opinion than I had before. But especially these three: First, that he bottometh very much of his Discourse upon a very erroneous Principle, which yet he seemeth to be so deeply in love with, that he hath repeated it (I verily believe) some hundreds of times in that work: … wit this, [That whatsoever is first in the intention, is last in execution; and è converso.] Which is an Error of that magnitude, that I cannot but wonder, how a person of such acuteness and subtilty of wit could possible be deceived with it. All Logicians know, there is no such universal. Maxim as he buildeth upon. The true Maxim, is but this, Finis qui primus est in Intentione, est ultimus in Executione. In the order of final Causes, and the Means used for that end, the Rule holdeth perpetually. But in other things, it holdeth not at all, or but by chance; or not as a rule, and necessarily. Secondly, that, foreseeing such Consequences would naturally and necessarily follow from his Opinion, as would offend the ear of a sober Christian at the very first sound, he would yet rather choose not only to admit the said harsh Consequences, but professedly indeavour also to maintain them, and plead hard for them in large Digressions, than to recede in the least from that opinion which he had undertaken to defend. Thirdly, that seeing (out of the sharpness of his wit) a necessity of forsaking the ordinary Sublapsarian way, and the Supralapsarian too, as it had diversly been declared by all that had gone before him (for the shunning of those Rocks, which either of those ways must unavoidably cast him upon) he was forc'd to seek out an untrodden Path, and to frame out of his own brain a new way (like a Spider's web wrought out of her own bowels) hoping by that device to salve all Absurdities could be objected; to wit, by making the glory of God (as it is indeed the chiefest,) so the only end of all other his Decrees, and then making all those other Decrees to be but one entire co-ordinate Medium conducing to that one end, and so the whole subordinate to it, but not any one part thereof subordinate to any other of the same. Dr. Twiss should have done well to have been more sparing in imputing the studium Paritum to others, wherewith his own eyes (though of eminent perspicacity) were so strangely blindfolded, that he could not discern, how this his new Device, and his old dearly beloved Principle (like the Cadmean Sparti) do mutually destroy the one the other.
This Relation of my pass'd thoughts having spun out to a far greater length than I intended, I shall give a shorter accompt of what they now are concerning these points.
For which account I refer you to the following parts of Dr. Hammonds Book aforesaid, where you may find them already printed. And for another account at large of Bishop Sanderson's last Judgment concerning God's Concurrence or Non-concurrence with the Actions of Men, and the positive entity of sins of commission, I rèfer you to his Letters already printed by his consent, in my large Appendix to my Impartial inquiry into the Nature of Sin. §. 68: p. 193. as far as p. 200.
Sir, I have rather made it my choice to transcribe all above out of the Letters of Dr. Sanderson which lie before me, than venture the loss of my Originals by Post or Carrier, which (though not often, yet) sometimes fail. Make use of as much, or as little as you please, of what I send you from himself (because from his own Letters to me) in the penning of his life, as your own Prudence shall direct you; using my name for your warranty in the account given of him, as much or as little as you please too. You have a performance of my promise, and an obedience to your desires from
North-Tidworth, March 5. 1677 / 8 Your affectionate humble Servant, Tho. Pierce.