The Reduction of a Digresser, Section 3 – Section 4
§. 3.
R. B. THey say of those that are bred souldiers and used to bloodshed and Victory, that the state must make them fresh work and finde them constant imployment, or else they will make work and finde imployment for themselves. A Polemical Divine much used to Disputations, and thereby to the glory and Triumph of Victory, is, as it seems by this Learned man, in the same case. Mr. Goodwin found him not work enough, and rather then he would want more, he makes to himself an adversary (for he saith, it is against Mr. Baxter) which here in the beginning he confesseth, makes not himself one, so much as by a denial of his Proposition, or an affirming the contrary. Could you finde never a man in the world to deal with, that affirmed that there may be new immanent acts in God? If you could, they had been fitter for you to take in hand: For its like, they would purposely have maintained that assertion with some shew of reason: If you could not; then your doctrine is so universally received, that I should think it should not need your Arguments now to support it: And then you may well conclude, as you do, that you have done little by this Dispute; if you have but laboriously maintained that which no man denies. But it seems to me it was some reasons ab homine, from the person of your chosen-seigned adversary, rather then from the cause that allured or impelled you to this encounter.
As you well begin with some explication of your sense, so will I also: and the rather seeing I have little else to do. I desire the Reader therefore to understand this much of my thoughts about the subject in hand, before I proceed further.
1. In generall, I am very strongly perswaded that it is one of the greatest sins that a great part of Pious Learned Divines are guilty of, that they audaciously adventure to dispute and determine unrevealed things; and above all others, about the Nature and Actions of the Incomprehensible God. And that this is The very thing that hath divided, weakned and ruined the Church, more then any one thing, except plain contempt of God: And that it is under the wounds of these overwise mens Learning, that the poor Church hath lain bleeding many hundred years. Our Contentions, Envyings, Hear-burnings, by perverse zeal, and much of all our warres and calamities, are long of this sinne in these men: That as the Romish Clergy are justly esteemed the greatest Schismaticks on earth, for their audacious and unmercifull additions to the Creed, making such a number of new Keys which heaven must be opened and shut by, which God never made: So are those zealous Learned men, the cruel dividers of the Church, by occasioning our contentions, that will with boldness pry into things unrevealed, and with considence and peremptoriness determine them, and then with long and subtil and fervent arguings maintain them, and make them seem necessary to the peace of the Church, or the soundness of our faith. Scarce any one thing hath more fully discovered to me the frailty and fearfull pravity of man, then this: To think, that so silly a worm should be no more acquainted with his own weakness, and the infinite distance between God and man; and should so confidently think that he knows what he doth not know! yea and what he cannot know? yea and be angry with all the world that will not say, It's true; and will not believe that he knows what he pretends to know! If a man should perswade me that I know how many Angels are in heaven, or how many daies it will be till Christs coming to Judgement, one would think it were no hard matter for me to know that I do not know any such thing. But if I should perswade my self that I know it, and should expect that all others should believe that I know it, and would write Volumes to prove it, and count all those ignotant or erroneous that will not believe me, or that will not say they know it when they do not, as well as I, whether this were the part of a man awake and in his wits, let others judge. How much more beyond our reach is the unsearchable nature of God, further then he hath revealed himself in his Works and Word, which, alas, affordeth us but a glimpse of his backparts. Yea the wonder is yet greater that these same Learned Divines, when they are at a nonplus in their arguing, will plead mans ignorance and incapacity to put off their adversary and blame others for too bold enquiries and intrusions into Gods secrets: and most of our Reformers do speak hardly of the Schoolmen for it (and very deservedly) and yet will not see the guilt in themselves. No man speaks more against his own natural inclination in this then I do: I feel as great a desire to Know, and to pry into any thing that others have disputed, and as much naturall delight in the reading of the most audacious subtil Disputers, as others do. I was wont to say, I could get more out of Aquinas, Scotus, Durandus, and such like in a day, then out of many Ancient Fathers, and later Treatisers, in a mone…h. But I finde that as desire to know was the beginning of our misery, so is it the continuance. Why do men fear themselves no more, in that which innocent Adam was undone by? I finde that this bait of knowing things unrevealed, doth but entice men into vain hopes, and labours, and self-deluding promises, and flatter men into a pleasant loss of time (and worse:) and in the end faileth all their expectations: and the Learned Disputers come off as Adam did, with Gods acknowledgement that he was like God in knowing good and evil (Ironically, as some Divines think; or expressing his unhappiness plainly, as others.) Those leaves of Bradwardine and Twiss Vind. and de scient. Med. &c. which I was wont to reade with longing and delight, I confess I look on now with fear; and many Learned Schoolmen (specially on the first Book of the Sentences) I read, as I hear men swear or take Gods name lightly in their common talk; even s…ldom, unwillingly (looking for other matter) and with horrour. Yet how oft doth Dr. Twisse tell Arminius and D…. Jackson of the sinfulness, unsafeness and uncertainty of departing from the Scrip…u…es in these high things, about the Nature and Decrees of God? And what Bradwardine excellently saith, I desire the Reader to see in him, de Causa Dei, l. 1. c. 1. corol▪ 32. B…t especially I desire the Reader to peruse that excellent Epistle of Col…ius in Beverovicius de Termino Vitae; which contains what I have a minde further to have said of this: with Gibieus's first Chapt. de Libertate Dei (lib. 2. de lib.) which shews how far God is above all our highest names and notions: and that Deus ab …llis …iber est: with much more against the Doctrine that I oppose. See also Car…. Contarenus de officio Ep…scopi, operum p. 410, 411. and what he citeth out of Dio…ysius. And I intreat you to reade seriously that notable passage, 1 Tim. 6. 3, 4, 5. where pride is shewed to be the root, and supposed knowledge said to be b…t Do…ing, and they are said to know nothing, that thought they knew most, and the sad effects of all are manifested.
2. I do think that most of our profound Disputes, wherewith the Domini…ns and Jesuites, the Arminians and Antiarminians have Learnedly troubled the world, are guilty in part, of this hainous sinne before mentioned: and that these great Doctors do dispute for the most part of they know not what. I confess its usual with men that know little themselves, to think that others know as little, and to measure the knowledge of other men by their own: and so its possible I may undervalue the Learning of these men, because having none my self, I cannot understand the largeness of their capacities, and sublimity of their speculations. However I am sure I am wiser and righter in one point then I was: For when I steeped my thoughts in their speculations, and was my self of the same express opinion with one of the parties, I thought that I begun to grow somewhat wise my self; but now I know I was deceived, and it was my folly, and that I knew not what I thought I knew. And though I will be bolder to befool such a one as my self, then men of such sublime incomprehensible knowledge; yet its my opinion that they are but men; and what a man is though I do not yet fully know, yet I am daily both studying and trying: and experience which i… the teacher of fools, hath taught me this much of him; that he is no Deity; nor one of the Intelligences that moveth or comprehendeth the orbs; that the wisest are not so wise as they would seem, or as they imagine themselves; that all their conceptions which they judge so comprehensive are comprehended in the compass of a narrow skull, and there lodged in a puddle of such brains, and humours, that a little knock if it hit right may make the wisest man an Ideot, and drive out all that profound Learning which Mr K. thinks is so near kin to the knowledge of God. I confess of late I have accustomed my self to such mean though…s of man and his imaginations, and such high thoughts of God, that I reade many of the profoundest School Divines (whom yet in some respects I honour) as I hear children discoursing of State matters, or Theology; or as if I heard two disputing in their sleep. The Serpent hath beguiled us as he did Eve, by drawing us from the simplicity that is in Christ. Vain Philosophy hath been the bait to deceive the Church: And so we are judiciously broken in pieces and ruined; and have learned to our cost to know good and evil. I think there is no hope of the Churches recovery but by returning to the primitive Christian simplicity; and using Aristotle as a help in Naturals, but not preferring him before Christ in the teaching of the highest speculations of Theology, as if we must go learn Gods nature of Aristotle, where Christ leaveth us at a loss. When those Learned men, who professing themselves wise became—shall become fools that they may be wise, and come quite back again to their cognosce teipsum, then they may know more of God then they yet do, and yet perceive that they know less then they thought they had known: and then their knowledge will edifie which now puffeth up.
3. I think that man can have no positive proper corception of God, at least besides ens (which the Scotists think proper) and that there is no word in humane language that can express Gods nature in strict propriety, but all our notions of him are so exceeding imperfect, that they express more of our ignorance then of our knowledge. White is bold to say (Institut. Peripatet. l. 4. lect. 9, 10.) that none of the Names that we attribute to God, hath a notion which hath in God a formall object: and that that science is of all other the most sub…ime and proper, which inquireth into the impropriety of the names that are spoken of God, and denieth them all as to him.
4. I think that there is no such thing in God … Understanding, Knowledge, Will, Intention, Decree, Election, Love, &c. as these are by men conceived of, and expressed: And that man knows not what it is in God formally which these terms are used by him to express. And that it is a farre less improper speech to say, that the Firmament is a nutshell, or the sun is a glow-worm, or to denominate the reason of men from the apprehensions of a fly or a worm, then to attribute Understanding, Will, &c. to God. What the impropriety is, we shall speak to more anon.
5. Therefore all those reasonings concerning Gods Nature or Acts, which are drawn meerly from the nature and acts of man, as concluding from a supposed Analogy of attribution (much more a formal Identity) is a vain deceitfull reasoning.
6. Yet as Scripture speaks of God in terms improper, according to mans capacity, and fetcht from mans nature and acts, so must we both conceive and speak: that is, not believing that these are proper expressions or conceptions of God, but that there is that in God which we cannot now more fitly conceive of then under these notions, or fi…lier express then in these terms. God hath nothing properly called Knowledge or Will▪ but he hath or is that which man cannot fitlier express or conceive of then under the notion of Knowledge and Will: But what it is, God knows. We must say, God knows, and God willeth; and God must say so to us: For else man could not hear or speak of God, if God condescended not to the language and capacity of man. Camero saith, even of our most perfect state of glory, that Frui Deo nil aliud est quam potenti…, sapientiae, bonitatis divinae fructum percipere, quem creaturae modus & ratio ferre potest, &c. Et videtur Deus experiundo quis sit (1. Jo 3.) Et qualem se erga nos praestet, caeterum (quicquid dictitent scholastici, homines acuti quidem, sed in hoc argumento nimis acuti, invisibilis est vel Angelis, quibus ad Dei conspectum nulla peccati labes, sola naturae imb…eillitas▪ (creaturae enim sunt) aditum interclusit. Praelect. de Verb. Dei. Glasc. c. 7. p. 455. I am more certain that even the eye of our understanding hath no direct and proper sight of God, while we are in the flesh.
7. Yet these attributions of Knowledge and Will, to God, are not falsehoods, for there is really somewhat in God which these are made the improper expressions of. Equivocals and Analogies are not eo nomine false expressions.
8. I am so farre from thinking that it is by Analogy of Attribution (as the Schoolmen call it) that Knowledge, Will, &c. are attributed to God and the creature; that I think these ascribed to God by an exceeding farre fetcht metaphor, further then (as I said) if I should call Heaven a nutshell; there being a thousand fold more likeness between these, then between Gods Knowledge and Will, and mans: For between finite and Infinite there is no proportion. Yea I will not undertake to prove that the Ratio homonymiae is not in Us, only, and not at all in the Things.
9. Yet no doubt, the thing meant by Knowledge and Will when attributed to God, is not only, as many say, most eminently in God, but is solely in God; that which is called knowledge and will in man being not the same thing, but toto genere diversum. But yet the conception that we have of Gods Knowledge and Will is but improper derived from the supposed simile, viz. our own understanding and will, which representeth it with exceeding imperfection. So that the terms of Knowledge, Will, Decree, &c. are spoken first and properly of the creature, and thence improperly of God.
10. Yet I acknowledge that though all these terms of Attribution, as to God, are exceeding improper, yet there are degrees of impropriety; some being more improper then others are: And so I doubt not but that the terms that are taken from humane passions and imperfections are more improperly applied to God, then these forementioned of Understanding and Will, &c.
And thus I have told you some of my thoughts, that Mr K. may know on what terms to deal with me, and not contend with one whose minde he understandeth not.
And as to his description of Immanent Acts, I deny that there is any such thing as an Act in God terminated in himself, supposing that you speak not of a meer objective termination (as I know you do not; For else you would call many of these transient acts, as having an extrinsick object.) As I acknowledge no certainty of a proper Act in God, so I acknowledge no positive termination of that which in him we call an Act; and we call it immanent but in that negative sense which the later clause of your description doth express. We are like to make a good dispute of it, when I am forced to deny the subject, as being a Chymaera.
§. 4.
Mr. K. IN the mean time, out of the respect I bear to the memory of Dr. Twisse, I cannot forbear to say, that Mr. Baxter had better consulted his own honour if he had said nothing to the disparagement of that Reverend and Renowned Doctor: of whom he speaks very sleightingly more then once in his otherwise excellent Treatise of Infant-Baptism, and in all his other Books: In which I could wish there were not somewhat of the Doctrinal part not answering that of the Devotional What Dr. Twisse hath said of Justification from eternity, upon this ground, that there can be no new immanent act in God, and how much some in the Synod said against him, and how little he replied for himself matters not: he was now grown old,
Et videas fessos Rhadamanthon & Aeacon annis,
Et Minoa queri—
Like enough, Mul…um mutatus ab illo
Hectore qui redit exuvias indutus Achillis.
When he beat Arminius, Corvinus, Tilenus, Penottus, Bellarmine, Dr. Jackson, and I know not how many more out of the field; & solus vacua dominatus arena left them all bleeding, as Mr. Goodwin would have said, at the feet of his Writings. It may be he was now at last, but magni nominis umbra, but whose very name really did most of the service, and I am sure was that formidable thing to the learned Adversary: But as old as he was, I question not but he could have e…sily made this good, There is no new Immanent act in God] against all that opposed him in the Synod, and Mr. Baxter to boot: and I would fain hear any of them all that opposed him, to give a satisfactory answer but to this one Argument.