II. COROLLARY. Now hence we may easily discern the vanity, the falsehood, and hypocrisy of all these tenders of the gospel to reprobates, as they are expounded by these men, viz. that when God offers to them life and salvation, pardon of sin, deliverance from death, and all other spiritual blessings, he dealeth very sincerely and in good earnest with them, because he will certainly afford them all these blessings, and deliver them from all the dreadful evils he hath threatened, upon performance of the conditions upon which they are tendered, viz. if you be willing; if you repent and turn from your iniquities; if you believe, all your inquities shall be blotted out, you shall live and not die; if you believe not, you shall die in your sins; if you repent not, you shall perish. And again, whosoever will, let him come and drink of the waters of life freely. Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters; whosoever believeth in me shall not perish, but have everlasting life; with infinite passages of the like nature: All these, say they, are offers made in good earnest, and with sincerity to all; and therefore to the reprobate, because "God's meaning, when he offers glory to any man if he believe and persevere, is truly to perform it, if he do so.' And as for Christ's coming into the world to save sinners, it was not to save the elect but under conditions of repentance and perseverant faith; and no decree of reprobation excludeth any man from salvation, provided always that he repent and believe:" For hence it plainly follows, that his true will is flatly to deny them these blessings, and to promise them nothing. And such a promise," saith Puffendorf, "differs only from a downright negative in this, that it is more affronting, by making the promise run affirmatively, and yet clogging it with an impossible condition." Seeing then these men teach that "the absolute decree of God not to give faith, repentance, and eternal life to Judas (or to any other reprobate) is that which we understand by the word REPROBATION, and this is never abrogated by any conditional promise;" and it is impossible he should have faith and repentance, if God hath absolutely decreed not to give it to him; must not the remission of sins and salvation promised to Judas only upon condition of faith and repentance, be promised upon an impossible condition, and so be equivalent b a Bishop Davenant against Hoard, p. 353. a b P. 399. d Bishop Davenant, p. 223. L. 5, c. 8, sec. 5. g to this negative,-Judas shall not be saved? "Seeing they" say the elect, "by a special mercy of God are so guided and ruled, that they, and they alone, perform the condition, and that the non-elect are always permitted to fail in the performance of the condition;" teaching that God hath not prepared for them, and therefore never gives, such grace as finally freeth them from sin;", and it is certain, that what he never gives they can never have :-Seeing "they are of opinion that to have sufficient means of salvation administered which shall prove no otherwise effectual than upon this condition, si homines sibi non desint,* is an argument of nonelection;" that is, of reprobation, that is, an argument that they cannot be saved; which one would think is also an argument of an absurdity of the supposition that they had sufficient means of salvation administered:-Seeing, lastly, they say, "the decrees of election and reprobation are, indeed, and in truth, decrees finding all men in a miserable and damnable estate, and out of it determining to bring some, and to fit them for eternal happiness, and not to bring others out of it by fitting them thereunto, but to permit them to the deficient rule of their own will:"And seeing the reprobates "always fail in the performance of the condition," and must do so because "God hath not prepared for them, and therefore never gives them, such grace as finally frees them from sin," and without which they cannot be so:-Since to have means effectual to salvation tendered to them only on this condition, "if they be not wanting to themselves," is an argument that they are reprobates; that is, men that cannot be saved:—Since, lastly, to be found in a miserable and damnable estate, and under a determination not to be brought out of it, or fitted for eternal life, but "permitted to the deficient rule of their own will," which being so after all that they can do, will be defective and insufficient to attain salvation:--Must it not clearly follow, from all and every one of these assertions, that salvation can only be tendered to them upon conditions impossible to be performed by them, and so by such a seeming and hypocritical tender must be effectually denied them? III. THIRDLY. This plainly follows from all those scriptures which have been offered in the STATE OF THE QUESTION, Secti & P. 257. f P. 258. P. 262. * If men be not wanting to themselves.' ED. 1 ons first and fourth, to prove that men at present are in a state of trial and probation; it being evidently absurd to make a trial or experiment whether men will repent, believe, or persevere, who are determined by him who makes the trial so to do; or whether they will come out of their miserable estate, and fit themselves for salvation whom God hath determined from all eternity, by his decree of election, "to bring out of that state, and render fit for that happiness;" or whether they will do this whom by his decree of reprobation he hath determined "not to bring out of it;" and this being only in effect to try whether they will null his absolute decrees; whether they will do, or neglect what these decrees have rendered it impossible for them to do or neglect. Secondly. From all that hath been offered there, Section third, to shew that God calls, and makes his applications even to habitual sinners, to reform and hearken to his exhortations, to turn to him from their evil ways; it being evidently vain and absurd to make these exhortations to men determined to the contrary, and left by God's decree of reprobation "to the deficient rule of their own wills," and so under a necessity of being deficient in the performance of what is necessary to their reformation. Thirdly. From all those scriptures produced there, Section Fifth, to shew that God hath set before men good and evil, life and death,' and left it to their choice, upon the motives and powerful incitements offered to them in the word, to embrace the one or the other; this being in effect a declaration on God's part, that he hath not, by any action or decree of his, determined some to be good, or to obtain salvation, or left others under a necessity of failing of salvation, or chusing evil, and not good. Fourthly. From all that hath been said from scripture of God's serious invitations of all men to repent, believe, and be converted, and his pathetical desires of their reformation and obedience, produced, DISCOURSE THIRD, Argument Second, they being certain demonstrations that he did not conceive they lay under an incapacity of repenting, believing, and turning to him. Fifthly. From all his commands and exhortations to wicked men to turn from the evil of their ways, that iniquity may not be their ruin;' and all his threats of the most dreadful judgments to them who still continue in them; and all the promises of pardon, life, and salvation made to those who do sincerely turn to him; of which I have discoursed, ARGUMENT THIRD, Section Third. For as these things plainly shew that what God requires may be done; what he exhorts to, is possible for them to perform, by the assistance of that grace which he is ready to afford them; that the evils which he threateneth may be avoided, and what he promises may be obtained by them; so are all these arguments strongly confirmed by the concurrent suffrage, and the express and frequent declarations of the ancient Fathers, saying, IV. First. In the general, that the scriptures every where assert, and give plain testimonies of the liberty of the will of man to chuse the good and refuse the evil. Thus Justin Martyr having told us, that "man would not be worthy of praise or recompence, ἐκ ἀφ' ἑαυτῶ ἐλόμενος τὸν ἀγαθὸν, ‘did he not chuse good of himself,' nor worthy of punishment for doing evil, if he did not this ¿Q' taur, of himself;" saith, "this the Holy and Prophetick Spirit hath taught us by Moses in these words, See, I have set before thee good and evil, chuse the good &c.' and also by Esaias the prophet, speaking thus in the name of God, 'If you be wil ling and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the earth; but if you will not hear, you shall be devoured by the sword, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." "The prophecy of Isaiah," saith Clemens of Alexandria, "saith, If you be willing, &c. q' ἡμῖν κείμενα διαλέγχεσα καὶ τὴν ἅιρεσιν, καὶ τὴν ἐκτροπὴν, ‘demonstrating that both the choice and the refusal,' (viz. of faith and obedience, of which he there speaketh) are in our power'." Tertullian pronounces them "unsound in faith, and corrupters of the christian discipline, and excusers of all sin, who so refer all things to the will of God, dicendo nihil fieri sine ejus nutu, ut non intelligamus aliquid esse in nobis ipsis, by saying, nothing is done without his appointment, as that we cannot understand that any thing is left to ourselves to do:' whereas though we learn from his precepts both what he would, and would not have done, tamen nobis est voluntas, et arbitrium elegendi alterum, sicut scriptum est, ecce posui ante te bonum et malum, yet is there in us a liberty of chusing either, according as it is written,' behold I have set before thee good and evil." St. Cyprian proves "credendi, vel non i Apol. 2, p. 80, B. C. D. k Strom. 1, p. 314, B. Exhort. ad Castit. eap. 2. 66 credendi libertatem in arbitrio positam, that to believe or not was left to our own free choice'."" From the same texts, (Deut. xxx, 19. Isaiah i. 19,) Epiphanius, against the Pharisaical fate, cites those word of Isaiah, if ye be willing and obedient;' whence," saith he, "it is plainly manifest and indubitable, that God hath granted to man free-will, ὥςε περὶ τὸν ἄνθρωπον εἶναι τὸ ἀγαθοεργεῖν, ἢ τῶν φαύλων ἐφίεσθαι πραγμάτων, so that it is in his power to do the good, or to chuse the evil.'"" Theodoret having cited those words of Christ, If any man thirst, let him come to me and drink,' adds, "'Anna dè múgia Eugoi TIS ἂν κἂν τοῖς θείοις ἐυαγγελίοις καν τοῖς τῶν Αποςόλων συγγράμμασι δηλῶντα σαφῶς τὴς τῶν ἀνθρώπων φύσεως τὸ αυθαίρετον, ten thousand things of this nature may be found both in the gospels and other writings of the apostles, clearly manifesting the liberty or selfelection of the nature of man'." St. Chrysostom speaks thus, "God saith, If you will and if you will not, nvples iμās muãv tõs ἀρετῆς καὶ κακίας, καὶ ἐπὶ τῇ γνώμῃ τῇ ἡμετέρᾳ τιθείς, giving us power, and putting it in our own option to be virtuous, or vicious.' The devil saith, Thou canst not avoid thy fate; God saith, 'I have put before thee fire and water, life and death, stretch forth thy hand to whether thou wilt. The devil saith, it is not in thee to stretch forth thy hand to them."P And St. Cyril' establisheth this doctrine from the same texts of scripture. And St. Austin proves from those words of Christ, either make the tree good and the fruit will be good, or make the tree evil and the fruit will be evil, “in nostrâ potestate situm esse mutare voluntatem, that it is put in our own power to change the will'."" It would be endless to transcribe all that the Fathers say upon this head.* Secondly. To the same effect they speak, when they say the scripture testifies that God hath left man in a capacity of doing good or evil. Thus Irenæus having laid down this as a rule, "that it is in the power of man to work and retain what is good; and again, not to do, or to lose the good he hath done: for this m Test. ad Quirin. 1. 3, c. 52. n Hær. 16, adv. Pharis. sec. 4. p To. 6, Hom. 2, De Fato. p. 868. See in Esa. 1, 19. St. Jerom. and St. Basil. Cyril. Alex. ibid. Clemen. Alex. Strom. 1, p. 514, B. Ex verbis Mosis, Deut. xxx, 19. Tertullian de Monog. c. 14. Basil. Hom. in Psal. lxi. o Adv. Gr, Serm. 5, To. 4,p. 543, q L. 1, in Es. p. 21. r Contra Adiman. c. 26. Ex Ecclus. xv, 15, 16, 17. August. de Gratia et Lib. Arb. c. 2. s L. 4, c. 72. |