' Hieron. a<l Ruf.
OF FREE-WILL. 115
eluded to keep it a block still; until at length there arose a stout champion/ challenging on his behalf the whole church of God, and, like a knight-errant, wandered from the west to the east to grapple with any that should oppose his idol; who, though he met with divers adversaries,^ one especially,^ who in the behalf of the grace of God continually foiled him and cast him to the ground, and that in the judgment of all the lawful judges assembled in councils,^ and in the opinion of most of the Christian bystanders,' yet, by his cunning insinuation, he planted such an opinion of his idol's deity and self- sufficiency in the hearts of divers, that to this day it could never be rooted out.
Now, after the decease of his Pelagian worshippers, some of the corrupter schoolmen, seeing him thus from his birth exposed with- out shelter to wind and weather, to all assaults, out of mere charity and self-love built him a temple, and adorned it with natural lights, merits, uncontrolled independent operations, with many other gay attendances. But in the beginning of the Reformation, — that fatal time for idolatry and superstition, together with abbeys and mona- steries,— the zeal and learning of our forefathers, with the help of God's word, demolished this temple, and brake this building down to the ground ; in the rubbish whereof we well hoped the idol him- self had been so deeply buried as that his head should never more have been exalted, to the trouble of the church of God, until not long since some curious wits, whose weak stomachs were clogged with manna and loathed the sincere milk of the word, raking all dunghills for novelties, lighted unhappily upon this idol, and presently, with no less joy than did the mathematician at the discovery of a new geometrical proportion, exclaim, " We have found it ! we have found
' " Pelagius: Dogma quod — Pestifero vomuit coluber sermone Britanuus." — Prosper, de Ingi'at., cap. i.
2 " Adfuit, exhortante Deo provisa perorbem, Sanctorum pia cura patinim : — 1. Pes- tera subeuntem Prima recidit, Sedes Koma Petri. 2. Non segnior inde, orientis Rectorum cura emicuit. Synod. Palest. 3. Hieronymus libris valde excellentibus hostem Disse- cuit. 4. Atticus Constant inop. 5. Dute Synodi Africans." — Prosper, de Ingrat.
3 " Concilium cui dux Aurelius ingeniumque Augustinus erat. Quem Christi gratia cornu Uberiore rigans, nostro lumen dedit 3evo." — Prosp., ibid.
* " Dixit Pelagius, quis est milii Augustinus ? Universi acclamabant blasphemantem in episcopum, ex cujus ore, dominus universae Africse, unitatis indulscrit felicitatem, non solum a conventu illo, sed ab omni ecclesia pellendum." — Ores. Apologet., p. 621, de Synod. Palest. " Pros omnibus studium gerite libros. S. Aug. quos ad Prosi^. et Hilar, scripsit, memoratis fratribus legendos ingerere," etc. — Epist. Synod. Byzac.
^ " Imo noverunt, non solum Eomanam Africanamque ecclesiam, sed per omnes mundi partes, universa? promissionis filios, cum doctrina hujus viri, sicut in tota fide, ita in gratiae confessione congruere." — Prosp. ad Rufin. " Augustinum sanctae recor- dationis virum pro vita si\a, et meritis, in nostra communione semper habuimus, nee unquam liunc sinistrte suspicionis saltern rumor suspexit." — Coelest., Epist. ad Gal. Episcop. These I Lave cited to show what a heavy prejudice the Arminian cause lies under, being professedly opposite to the doctrine of St Austin, and they continually slighting of his authority.
116 A DISPLAY OF ARMINIANISM.
it !" And without more ado, up they erected a shrine, and until this day continue offering of praise and thanks for all the good they do to this work of their own hands.
And that the idol may be free from ruin, to which in himself they have found by experience that he is subject, they have matched him to contingency, a new goddess of their own creation, who, having proved very fruitful in monstrous births upon their conjunctions, they nothing doubt they shall never want one to set on the throne and make president of all human actions: so that after he hath, with various success, at least twelve hundred years, contended with the providence and grace of God, he boasteth now as if he had obtained a total victory. But yet all his prevailing is to be attributed to the diligence and varnish of his new abettors, with (to our shame be it spoken!) the negligence of his adversaries. In him and his cause there is no more real worth than was when by the ancient fathers he was exploded and cursed out of the church : so that they who can attain, through the many winding labyrinths of curious distinctions, to look upon the thing itself, shall find that they have been, like Egyp- tian novices, brought through many stately frontispieces and goodly fabrics, with much show of zeal and devotion, to the image of an ugly ape.
Yet here observe, that we do not absolutely oppose free-will, as if it were " nomen inane," a mere figment, when there is no such thing in the world, but only in that sense the Pelagians and Arminians do assert it. About words we will not contend. We grant man, in the substance of all his actions, as much power, liberty, and freedom as a mere created nature is capable of. We grant him to be free in his choice from all outward coaction, or inward natural necessity, to work according to election and deliberation, sjDontaneously embracing what seemeth good unto him. Now, call this power free-will, or what you please, so you make it not supreme, independent, and boundless, we are not at all troubled. The imposition of names depends upon the discretion of their mventers. Again ; even in spiritual things, we deny that our wills are at all debarred, or deprived of their proper liberty : but here we say, indeed, that we are not propei'ly free until the Son makes us free; — no great use of freedom in that wherein we can do nothing at all. We do not claim such a liberty as should make us despise the grace of God,^ whereby we may attain true liberty indeed ; which addeth to, but taketh nothing from, our original freedom. But of this after I have showed what an idol the Armiuians make of free-will. Only take notice in the entrance that we speak of it now, not as it was at first by God created, but as it is now by sin cor- rupted ; yet, being considered in that estate also, they ascribe more ' " Homo non libertate gratiam, sed gratia libertatcm, asseqixitvix." — Aug.