Admonition to William Eyre, Section 10
§. 10:
THe next passage that toucheth me that I meet with, is pag. 174. where you say, [A Learned man of the late Assembly in a Sermon before the Parliament, then sitting, declared, that all the Promises of the New Covenant are Absolute, not only citra meritum, but citra conditionem, without any prerequired conditions of us: amongst many other places he cites this Text (Mr. Strong Serm. 1 Sam. 2.30.) Besides this I might adde abundance more: But I believe Mr. Baxier is instar omnium with Mr. W.]
Rep. 1. I believe the plain Texts of Gods Word, not to be evaded with modesty is instar omnium with Mr. Woodbridge. He that reads his digested Sermon, and your acknowledgement of his supereminent parts, natural and acquired, will not believe that he takes his doctrine on trust from any man, much less from such a man as I. 2. It is great immodesty in you, if you intend hereby to perswade the world, that it is my singular opinion that the New Covenant hath conditions, yea or that the current of the Reformed Divines, and Churches do not expresly contradict your conceit. For me to prove this, were as needless as to heap up testimonies to prove that the Protestant Divines do hold that the Scripture is Gods Word. He that is ignorant of their judgement in this, let him be ignorant still for me. I except here three or four late Writers; especially those three Fravequerans Maccovius, Cocceius and Cloppenburgius. 3. But for Mr. Strong, I can say nothing, as having not his Sermon at hand; but what I have heard of the piety, Judgement & Moderation of that Learned man, and what I finde of your boldness in this Book in frequent untruths, I confess doth make me resolve rather to believe you wrong him, till I shall see the words; though not peremptorily to conclude it and charge you with it. I have oft my self maintained that the promise of the first Grace is Absolute; but I shall never believe that all the promises of the New Covenant are Absolute, as long as I take Gods Word for my Rule, which I hope will be till death. But here I must give you some Animadversions on your descriptions of a Condition, pag. 184.
And to the first (out of Dr. Cawell) I say, that it be appointed for suspending the efficacy of the act or grant, is indeed essential to a condition: But that it be Uncertain is meerly accidentall; Uncertain is put for Contingent, because what is contingent is usually among men uncertain; It means an uncertainty in natura rei, when it may tend ad esse vel non esse; and not that it be actu incertum, id est, ignotum Donatori. Contingent things may be certain to God; and yet contingout in themselves still: As Dr. Twiss oft saith, He hath decreed not only that contingent things shall come to pass, but contingentia contingenter eventura. So doth he foreknow that contingent things shall contingently come to pass. Yet while they are contingent they are the fir matter for a condition, though he foreknow them. An unbeliever himself knows not that he shall believe. And if a man had a spirit of Prophesie to foreknow such future events, do you think that makes him uncapable of making a conditional contract? If a Prophet had a House or Land to set, might he not make a Legal conditional Contract, because he foreknows the Rent will be paid? You may as well say, God should make no Law, because he foreknows it will be fulfilled, or men will do the thing commanded. But may he not therefore oblige them to do it? And if so, by a precept, I see not but the case is the same as to a sanction, and condition which is essential to that sanction.
And I must further tel you that you must not separate what God hath conjoyned. As he foreknows that we will perform the condition, so he foreknows that it will be a condition by his constitution before we perform it. For we cannot perform a condition which is no condition. And God did not forcknow that we should meerly perform the act of believing, but that we should perform the condition of believing: even as he did not only foreknow that we should perform the act of faith, but the duty of faith, and therefore that it must first be a duty.
Moreover I would know whether ever God threatned an elect man or not in his Law, yea or the reprobate? If not, 1. How said he to Adam, In the day thou eatest thou shalt dye? 2. Then the first Law had no threatning (then which nothing more false) or else Adam was not elect. 3. How then are unbelievers condemned already. 4. There are an hundred express threatnings in the Word. 5. The contrary opinion is Antinomianism indeed, to take believers to be not at all threatned by the Law. 6. At least are they not threatned with temporal punishments, or chastisements? 7. And then wicked reprobates are not threatned, which is false.
If you grant the threatning to the Elect or others, then it is either a conditional threatning or Absolute: If Absolute then they must bear it: there is no escape; nor are all absolute to them that must bear it. If conditional: then either God knows whether they will commit that sin which is the condition of the threatning, or he doth not. The later you will disclaim I doubt not: The former grants that there may be a condition which is yet certainly foreknown to God.
You will find the Prophet Jeremy making a conditional contract by Gods appointment, in a case wherein God had before revealed to him the event.
If (as Dr. Twiss hath well proved) the same thing may be necessary and contingent, then the same thing may be necessary, foreknown, and yet conditionally given out or threatned in Law.
It is a most dangerous course of Divines to set Gods Derrees, Foreknowledge or Disposal of Events, in opposition to his moral Rectorship, as if the acts of one must be inconsistent with the acts of the other. Let me speak it out, though to the provocation of the contemptuous and self-conceited, that this one grand mistake, hath introduced most of their Errors, and feedeth most of your contentions. They cannot reconcile the acts of Gods absolute Dominion, with the moral acts of Regiment; nor can they see in what a distinct series they stand.
The like Answer serves to the same word [incertum] in the next definition of Cook. Your two later I wholly allow of, interpreting [by performance] to mean [upon performance.] Your conclusion pag. 185. is false, that Omnis conditio antecedens est effectiva. Though I remember Chamier hath such a word, but enough to the contrary.
I have spoke thus much of this, that you may also see, that though the Truths in Mr. Owens Book are Invincible, yet the Mistakes are not; and if you will consider it well, I think you will find that the pulling out of this one Pin, hath caused his Fabrick to fall in pieces. For my part I profess to follow my conscience, which upon the most impartial search of Scripture that I am able to make, doth tell me that the Scripture doth so evidently contain conditional threatnings and promises to the Elect, that to deny it, would be, to me, to renounce my understanding, and proclaim Scripture to be utterly unintelligible, which were to be no Word of God.