these two propositions, That the unregenerate man hath a true freedom of will in doing evil, and the eternal Creator a freedom of will in doing good;' I will engage myself to give him full satisfaction, that no difference betwixt reformed churches concerning predestination or reprobation is more than verbal, or hath any other foundation besides the ambiguity of unexplicated terms. The errors on all sides grow only from pardonable mistakings, not so much of truth itself, as of her proper seat or place of residence.

CHRISTIAN READER,

THIS last discourse was published without the author's consent or knowledge, as he says, book 9. chap. 12. vol. 8. page 256, note b. He that will compare, shall find very considerable meliorations in this now printed after an exact copy: which also had a solemn dedication prefixed. I feared these late revolutions might have made the ritual publishing it prejudicial to the honourable persons. Therefore have I placed it here, as in the dark behind a curtain, where the reader may have the same benefit, though the author's friends have not either the honour intended, or the accidental prejudice.

TO THE

TWO NOBLE GENTLEMEN, HIS MUCH HONOURED FRIENDS, Mr. R. S. and Mr. E. S. Sons to the R. H. L. S.

The blessings of this life, and of the life to come be multiplied.

NOBLE SIRS,

THERE is no argument in divinity, wherein every soul that earnestly seeks salvation (or the avoidance of damnation) ought in reason to be more desirous of satisfaction, than in the point of eternal election and reprobation. Nor are scho

lastic disputes concerning these points in themselves so dangerous, as they are made by such as are more apt to abet contentions set on foot, than able rightly to examine whence the quarrel first began, upon what terms it stands, or how it may fitly be composed. In searching out the true sense and meaning of whatsoever it hath pleased God to reveal, there can be no offence; in the manner of the search we often offend. Diligence and accurate pains are always commendable, as in every other subject, so in this, wherein curiosity is only dangerous: howbeit, wheresoever curiosity of search is dan-251 gerous, peremptory resolutions (whether negative or affirmative) must needs be pernicious, seeing suspension of assent in difficult or controversed cases is a property no less essential to true faith, than firm adherence to divine truth known and acknowledged. And if the blame were bestowed in that proportion it hath been deserved amongst the several commentators upon the scriptures prefixed to these discussions, the heaviest burden would lie, not upon such as make new queries, but upon such as have taken upon them to give absolute determinations without accurate search of the apostle's meaning; preposterously seeking to comprehend what they should admire, and endeavouring to stir up affected admiration of that which every novice might fully comprehend, were their resolutions in this argument as orthodoxal as they are peremptory.

The end of these present queries is to find out a middle way, how to maintain some principal conclusions of reformed churches (specially concerning the servitude of man's will— the nullity of merits or of works foreseen—and the irresistible efficacy of saving grace), without association of those rigid premisses which latter ages have invented for their maintenance, as astronomers of old did epicycles, and Copernicus of late the motion of the earth for salving their celestial phenomena. To pick quarrels with antecedents of good use, whereas the fault lies only in the inference, is a fault too common to controversy-writers in every age. And thus to spite an erroneous conclusion, the foundations of many useful

in their place, which will bring forth dangerous errors by faultless consequences.

I have often been enforced to season my retired thoughts with sighs or tears, whiles I beheld the factious oppositions of foreign reformed churches abetted, animated, and propagated by men whom God had placed as bystanders or unpartial umpires, and blessed with all opportunities of making peace amongst others, so they themselves had been the sons of peace. The parties here meant were English divines, men freed by God's especial providence from all vicinity of public adversary, or such politick provocations as their foreign brethren were often misled with. Some, or rather a great many, of no mean note, have held it as a matter of conscience, and affected it as a choice fruit of zeal, to press those rigid opinions upon their auditors which the first authors of them would never have conceived, or quickly would have abandoned, if they could with safe conscience have subscribed unto the English liturgy. And in very truth this peculiar symptom of the crazed and ill-tempered presbytery (I mean zealous adherents to rigid tenents of reprobation) hath been an especial motive to withdraw many hands and pens from subscription to our Common Prayer Book, or Book of Homilies. It was a subject of much sadder contemplation to see (as who sees not, that hath not resolved to wink at the solecisms of his good friends?) many divines, well fitted and engaged for better employments, become anxious solicitors for the admission, or rather intrusion, of that very error into reformed churches, whose extirpation in the synagogue, the prevention of whose propagation throughout the churches of the Gentiles by him planted, was a great part of his labours, who in sacred labours was more plentiful than any, than all his fellow apostles.

The attempt for this intrusion found no such furtherance from the pretended title of ancient orthodoxal truth, as from present opposition to modern errors; as if the parties of whom I speak had held it an aphorism of sacred policy to entertain any heathenish, Jewish, or Turkish fugitives, able to do service against the Lutheran. That sundry writers, of greater note and name than here to be named by me, have

(out of opposition to the Lutheran) given more suspicion of concurrence with the Stoick, the modern Turk, or Jews that lived in our apostle's time, than the Lutheran doth of any 252 concurrence with the papist, or other heretic whatsoever; I shall be able to inform him that will friendly and privately debate this seeming paradox with me, whether by writing or by word of mouth. But, as the world now is set, openly and publicly to confront a countenanced error, would breed greater dissension between brethren in profession and affection, than the unseasonable publication of truth (specially by so mean a messenger of truth as myself) could recompense:

Dum furor in cursu est currenti cede furori :

It is one thing to give the way unto such fierce oppositions. as daily meet us, and another to be carried headlong with them, or to follow them, as their patrons too often follow princes' courts, that is, as we say, afar off.

Whilst I was an artist, I liked the old prescript well, Loquendum cum multis, philosophandum cum paucis. The medicine a little corrected is not much amiss in divinity: Theologizandum cum paucis, non loquendum contra multos, unless it be unto some few, and those no parts of the multitude or vulgar sort, either for judgment or affection. Amongst my choicest acquaintance and most respected friends, I had no choice left in competition with yourselves, to whom, in all congruity, I rather ought, or more safely might communicate, what I conceive of this or other like points of divinity, more necessary to be inquired into by 'such as are intelligently ingenious, than expedient to be published or communicated without distinction of times and persons. For of my choicest meditations heretofore, either published or privately perused, I have ever liked the impression much better, whilst I looked upon it in your disposition and conversation, than whilst I read it in mine own papers, or from the press. Vos estis epistola mea: of all my labours in the ministry, I have reaped no comfort like to this-that it hath pleased God to use me sometimes as a waterer of those precious seeds unto which he himself hath given plentiful increase; and to withhold any thing that my conscience tells me may yield wholesome nourishment

is) unto those sacred plants which the right hand of our heavenly Father hath planted in your breasts, were to rob myself of my chiefest joy. Thus I have adventured in a case (as it is commonly apprehended) of great danger to be your taster, being more willing (as I know you are persuaded of me) to drink the deadliest bodily poison that could be ministered unto me, than willingly to infect your souls with any poisonous doctrine. Howbeit, I proffer not these brief receipts as mountebanks do their drugs, or tradesmen their wares, upon oath or confident asseverations, but rather refer them to the further trial of your less partial, more judicious taste, faithfully promising on my part all readiness to recall, amend, or alter whatsoever upon better examination shall be found amiss, whether in the matter, the method, or manner of speech.

And upon these terms I interest you by these presents in other treatises of this argument, all which I have purposely consecrated as a memorial pledge of those kind references which heretofore have been betwixt us, of that respect which I will ever bear unto your persons, and of the honour due (from me especially) to your virtues. VALETE.

Yours ever in all love and observance,

From my study in Corpus Christi College,

Jan. 1. 1619.

THOMAS JACKSON.