their late corrupt edition of the great Bibliotheca' of the ancient Fathers. Gretser professeth that he "extremelyk wondereth, that this judgment of the book of Agobardus should proceed from a Catholic man. For Agobardus," saith he, "in that whole book doth nothing else, but endeavour to demonstrate, although with a vain labour, that images are not to be worshipped." "And who be these Grecians whose errors touching images Agobardus doth refel, as this publisher saith? Surely these Grecians are the fathers of the Nicene council, who decreed that images should be adored and worshipped. Against whom whosoever disputeth, doth mainly dissent from right believers." To which blind censure of the Jesuits we may oppose, not only the general judgment of the ancient Almains his own countrymen, who within these four or five hundred years did flatly disclaim this image-worship as by Nicetas Choniates is witnessed: but also the testimony of the divines and historians of England, France, and Germany touching the Nicene council in particular; rejecting it as a pseudo-synod", because it concluded "that images should be worshipped: which thing," say our chroniclers, "the Church of God doth utterly detest." And yet for all that, we have news lately brought us from Rome, that "it is most certain, and most assured, that the Christian

i Magn. Bibliothec. Veter. Patrum, tom. 9. part. 1. edit. Colon. ann. 1618. pag. 548. et 551.

k Vehementer profecto hoc judicium de libro Agobardi ab homine Catholico profectum, miratus sum. Nam Agobardus toto libello, nihil aliud facit, quam quod demonstrare nititur (quamvis casso conatu) imagines non esse adorandas. Jac. Gretser. lib. 1. de Cruce, cap. 58.

Et quinam sunt Græci, quorum de imaginibus errores Agobardus refellit, ut editor ait? Nimirum Græci isti sunt patres Nicæni concilii, qui sanxerunt imagines adorandas et colendas esse. Contra quos qui disputat, is ab orthodoxis toto cœlo discordat. Ibid.

̓Αρμενίοις γὰρ καὶ ̓Αλαμανοῖς ἐπίσης ἡ τῶν ἁγίων εἰκόνων προσκύvηois ȧnnyópεvrat. Nicet. Choniat. annal. lib. 2.

n Hincmar. Remens. lib. contr. Hincmar. Laudunens. cap. 20. Egolismens. monach. in vita Caroli Magni. Annal. Fuldens. Ado, Regino. et Hermann. Contract. in chronic. an. 794.

• Imagines adorari debere: quod omnino Ecclesia Dei execratur. Simeon Dunelmens. Roger. Hoveden. et Matth. Westmonast. hist. ann. 792. vel 793. P Ecclesiam porro Christianam, etiam Antiquissimam, Totam, ac UniverVOL. III. LL

Church, even the most ancient, the whole, and the universal Church, did with wonderful consent, without any opposition or contradiction, worship statues and images." Which if the cauterized conscience of a wretched apostata would give him leave to utter: yet the extreme shamelessness of the assertion might have withheld their wisdoms whom he sought to please thereby, from giving him leave to publish it.

But it may be I seek for shamefacedness in a place where it is not to be found: and therefore leaving them to their images, like to like, for "they that make them are like unto them: and so is every one that trusteth in them," I proceed from this point unto that which followeth.

salem, summo consensu, absque ulla oppositione, aut contradictione, statuas ac imagines veneratam esse, est certissimum ac probatissimum, M. Anton. de Dominis, De consilio sui reditus, sect. 23.

9 Psal. 115. ver. 8. et 135. ver. 18.

OF

FREE WILL.

THAT man hath free will, is not by us gainsaid: though we dare not give him so large a freedom as the Jesuits presume to do. Freedom of will we know doth as essentially belong unto a man, as reason itself: and he that spoileth him of that power, doth in effect make him a very beast. For this is the difference betwixt reasonable and unreasonable creatures, as Damascen rightly noteth: "The unreasonable are rather led by nature, than themselves leaders of it: and therefore do they never contradict their natural appetite, but as soon as they affect any thing, they rush to the prosecution of it. But man, being indued with reason, doth rather lead nature, than is led by it: and therefore being moved with appetite, if he will, he hath power to restrain his appetite, or to follow it." Hereby he is enabled to do the things which he doth, neither by a brute instinct of nature, nor yet by any compulsion, but by advice and deliberation: the mind first taking into consideration the grounds and circumstances of each action, and freely debating on either side what in this case were best to be done or not done, and then the will inclining itself to put in execution the last and conclusive judgment of the practical understanding. This liberty we acknowledge a man may exercise in all actions that are

• Οθεν καὶ τὰ ἄλογα οὐκ εἰσὶν αὐτεξούσια· ἄγονται γὰρ μᾶλλον ὑπὸ τῆς φύσεως, ἤπερ ἄγουσι· διὸ οὐδὲ ἀντιλέγουσι τῷ φυσικῇ ὀρέξει, ἀλλ ̓ ἅμα ὀρεχθῶσι τινὸς, ὁρμῶσι πρὸς τὴν πρᾶξιν. Οδὲ ἄνθρωπος λογικὸς ὢν, ἄγει μᾶλλον τὴν φύσιν, ἤπερ ἄγεται· διὸ καὶ ὀρεγόμενος, εἶπερ ἐθέλοι, ἐξουσίαν ἔχει ἀναχαιτίσαι τὴν ὄρεξιν, ἢ ἀκολουθῆσαι αὐτῇ. Jo. Damascen. orthodox. fid. lib. 2. cap. 27. edit. Græc. vel 44. Latin.

within his power to do, whether they be lawful, unlawful, or indifferent; whether done by the strength of nature or of grace; for even in doing the works of grace, our free will suspendeth not her action, but being moved and guided by grace, doth that which is fit for her to do: grace not taking away the liberty, which cometh by God's creation, but the pravity of the will, which ariseth from man's corruption. In a word, as we condemn Agapius and the rest of that mad sect of the Manichees, for bringing in such a kind of necessity of sinning, whereby men were made to offend against their wills: so likewise with Polychronius and other men of understanding we defend, that "virtue is a voluntary thing, and free from all necessity;" and with the author of the books De vocatione Gentium, attributed unto Prosper, "wed both believe and feel by experience that grace is so powerful, that yet we conceive it no way to be violent."

But it is one thing to enquire of the nature, another to dispute of the strength and ability of free will. We say with Adamantius, in the dialogues collected out of Maximus against the Marcionites, that "Gode made angels and men, αυτεξουσίους, but not παντεξουσίους :” he indued them with freedom of will, but not with ability to do all things. And now since the fall of Adam we say further, that freedom of will remaineth still among men; but the ability' which once it had, to perform spiritual duties and things pertaining to salvation, is quite lost and extinguished. For "who is there of us," saith St. Augus

Β 'Ανάγκη τε καὶ ἄκοντας τοὺς ἀνθρώπους πταίειν διατείνεται. Phot.

biblioth. num. 179.

• ̓Αδέσποτον γὰρ ἡ ἀρετὴ, καὶ ἑκούσιον· καὶ ἀνάγκης πάσης ἐλευθερον. Polychron. in Cantic. pag. 93. edit. Meursii.

d Hanc quippe abundantiorem gratiam ita credimus atque experimur potentem, ut nullo modo arbitremur esse violentam. Prosp. de vocat. Gent. lib. 2. сар. 26.

• Τοὺς ἀγγέλους καὶ τοὺς ἀνθρώπους αὐτεξουσίους λέγω ὑπὸ θεοῦ γεγε· νῆσθαι, ἀλλ' οὐ παντεξουσίους. Orig. dial. 3. contr. Marcion.

Potentiam proximam et activam intelligo; non remotam, quæ mere passiva est.

Quis autem nostrum dicat, quod primi hominis peccato perierit liberum arbitrium de humano genere? Libertas quidem periit per peccatum; sed illa

tine," which would say, that by the sin of the first man free will is utterly perished from mankind? Freedom indeed is perished by sin: but that freedom which was in paradise, of having full righteousness with immortality; for which cause man's nature standeth in need of God's grace, according to the saying of our Lord: If the Son shall free you, then ye shall be free indeed : namely, free to live well and righteously. For free will is so far from having perished in the sinner, that by it they sin, all they especially who sin with delight, and for the love of sin, that pleaseth them which liketh them." When we deny therefore that a natural man hath any free will unto good, by a natural man, we understand one that is without Christ, and destitute of his renewing grace; by free will, that which the philosophers call τὸ ἐφ' ἡμῖν, a thing that is in our own power to do; and by good, a theological not a philosophical good, bonum vere spirituale et salutare, a spiritual good and tending to salvation. This then is the difference which God's word teacheth us to put betwixt a regenerate and an unregenerate man. The one is "alive unto God, through Jesus Christ our Lord;" and so enabled to "yield himself unto God, as one that is alive from the dead, and his members as instruments of righteousness unto God;" having "hisk fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life." The other is a mere "stranger' from the life of God, deadm in trespasses and sins ;" and so no more able to lead a holy life acceptable unto God, than a dead man is to perform the actions of him which is alive.

He may live indeed the life of a natural and a moral

quæ in Paradiso fuit, habendi plenam cum immortalitate justitiam: propter quod natura humana divina indiget gratia, dicente Domino: Si vos Filius liberaverit, tunc vere liberi eritis; utique liberi ad bene justeque vivendum. Nam liberum arbitrium usque adeo in peccatore non periit; ut per illud peccent, maxime omnes qui cum delectatione peccant, et amore peccati, hoc eis placet quod eis libet. Aug. contr. duas epist. Pelagian. lib. 1. cap. 2. op. tom. 10. pag. 413.

h Rom. chap. 6. vers. 11.

k Ibid. ver. 22.

i Ibid. vers. 13.

Ephes. chap. 4. ver. 18.

m

Ephes. chap. 2. ver. 1. 5.