Autokatakrisis, or, Self-condemnation,: exemplified in Mr. Whitfield, Mr. Barlee, and Mr. Hickman. With occasional reflexions on Mr Calvin, Mr Beza, Mr Zuinglius, Mr Piscator, Mr Rivet, and Mr Rollock: but more especially on Doctor Twisse, and Master Hobbs; against whom, God's purity and his præscience ... with the sincere intention and the general extent of the death of Christ, are finally cleared and made good; and the adversaries absurdities ... are proved against them undeniably, out of their own hand-writings. With an additional advertisement of Mr Baxter's late book entituled The Groatian religion discovered, &c. By Thomas Pierce rector of Brington in Northampon-shire.

Sect. 30.

To conclude the whole Chapter, and so to quit the whole subject, I must satisfie a complaint which Mr. B. hath made (c. 3. p. 129.) That I charged him and his Masters with the crime of having said a great deal worse, and in much worse terms, then that God is (verbatim) the Author of sin. Now that he may not complain afresh of his having complained to no purpose, and to the end he may beware of rash complainings for the future, I will prove my charge in such a manner, as not to leave his very abettors the possibility to dissent. The

most succinct way to do it, will be to lay down the whole importance of the aequivocal word Author, and then to compare it with those expressions which are confessed by Mr. B. to have been used by his Masters, as well as Bre∣thren.

1. Author sometimes doth signifie the first beginner of a work, sometimes him who doth help advance it; some∣times a factor, sometimes onely a perswader; sometimes a sole cause, sometimes a concause; sometimes a person of power and dignity, by whose advice or command a thing is done; sometimes him who confers a right; sometimes the guardian of a child under age; sometimes him who doth abet or assert, or uphold another in any action: some∣times he that shews the way is said to be the Author of it: sometimes he who appointeth or decreeth any thing, is cal∣led the Author of the thing decreed.

2. Now from hence it is apparent, how many wayes Mr. B. and his Praedecessors have not onely made God the Author of sin, but something worse too. Had they onely said in plain terms (as I have shewed they have) God is the Author of sin, they might have sought for some excuse or mitigation of the crime from the softest impor∣tance of the word Author. They might have said they meant no more, then that God doth perswade or tempt men to sin, (as Mr. B's word was.) But notwithstanding even that had been sufficiently blasphemous, Mr. B.† confesseth (as I have shewed) that they assirm God's impelling and forcing men to sin, his making men sin by coaction, which

Prosper professeth to be worse then can be truly spoken of the Devil himself. Now though he who compells a man to sin, is properly called the Author of it; yet be∣cause the word Author hath other softer significations, this must needs be much worse then onely to say he is the Author.

3. Nay in not many lines (p. 128.) before Mr. B. is so unhappy as to put me on this task, be cites a passage from Mr. Rolloc, thus excusing and mollifying that Par∣ties Doctrine; [† God's decree of sinfulness in the abstract, is not of sinfulness as such, but as it hath the nature of good∣ness in it.] His word is malitia, as the abstract of malum, and himself explains it by Anomia, in the two lines go∣ing before. To shew how Mr. W. and Mr. B. have stretched the blasphemy to its extremity, by teaching that God doth work sin, as well as will it, and hath a hand in effecting. of it, that he makes it necessary, excites men to it, is the maker of all reall things without exception, and the cause of the obliquity it self in abstracto; I say, to shew this afresh on this occasion, were [actum agere] to make a needlesse repetition of what hath been the subject of many Sections.

Notes

• The importance of the word Author.
• 1. Author quan∣do que 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 significat, quandoque 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Priscian. lib. 5. Idem valet quod 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉. Coel. Sec. Cur. Author est ut sic dicam Fa∣ctor, Laur. Val. l. 4. Hortator & Author, Cic. in partit, Orat. 52. Consiliario & Au∣thore aliquid inire, legitur apud Cic. ad Alt. l. 14.305.4. Suasor & Author deditionis. Cic. 3. Offic. p. 147. Author est in quo est vis, potestas, & dignitas. Liv. l. 1. ab urbe cond. 72. Impero, Authorque sumut me cuivis castrandum loces, Plaut. Aul. 7.73. suspende, vinci, verbera, Author sum, sino, Idem Poenal. 3.17. Author••est à quo quis jus comparavit. Cic. 7. Verr. Authores pupillorum vocantur, in quorum admi∣nistratione infirma aetas, resque eorum sunt, Paulus Juriscon. Authores sunt qui Authoritatem suam & decretum interponunt, Liv. l. 1. ab urb. cond. Viae Author qui viam monstrat, aut qui ire jubet. Ovid. 3. Metam. Etiam Duces militum Authores vocabantur, Valla. l. 4.
• 2. How the ene∣mies of truth say what is worse then that God is (ver∣batim) the Au∣thor of sin.
• †

  His confessi∣on is to be seen from his p. 133. to his p. 136.
• Look back on Sect. 27. num. 5.
• Prosper ad ob∣ject. Vincen. 11. p. 341, 342.
• 3. Mr. Rolloc's strange Salvo.
• †

  Non est De∣cretum malitiae quà malitia est, sed quà bonita∣tis rationem ha∣bet. R. Rolloc. in Rom. 8.29.
• Dr. Twisse affirmeth, that Gods Incitati∣on and Excita∣tion to the act of sin doth not onely influere in ipsum actum Creaturae, but also in ipsam voluntatem &c. Vin. Gra. l. 2. par. 1. c. 12. sect. 2. p. 142.