← Back to the beginning of V.49. Prayer that all men may find mercy, and of the will of God, that all men might be saved.

There is no doubt but we ought in all things to frame our wills to the will of God, and that otherwise in whatsoever we do we sin. For of ourselves being so apt to err, the only way which we have to straighten our paths is by following the rule of his will whose footsteps naturally are right. If the eye, the hand, or the foot do that which the will commandeth, though they serve as instruments to sin, yet is sin the commander’s fault and not theirs, because nature hath absolutely and without exception made them subjects to the will of man which is Lord over them. As the body is subject to the will of man, so man’s will to the will of God; for so it behoveth that the better should guide and command the worse. But because the subjection of the body to the will is by natural necessity, the subjection of the will unto God voluntary; we therefore stand in need of direction after what sort our wills and desires may be rightly conformed to his. Which is not done by willing always the selfsame thing that God intendeth. For it may chance that his purpose is sometime the speedy death of them whose long continuance in life if we should not wish we were unnatural.

When the object or matter therefore of our desires is (as in this case) a thing both good of itself and not forbidden of God; when the end for which we desire it is virtuous and apparently most holy; when the root from which our affection towards it proceedeth is charity, piety that which we do in declaring our desire by prayer; yea over and besides all this, sith we know that to pray for all men living is but to shew the same affection which towards every of them our Lord Jesus Christ hath borne, who knowing only as God who are his9 did as man taste death for the good of all men: surely to that will of God which ought to be and is the known rule of all our actions, we do not herein oppose ourselves, although his secret determination haply be against us, which if we did understand as we do not, yet to rest contented with that which God will have done is as much as he requireth at the hands of men. And concerning ourselves, what we earnestly crave in this case, the same, as all things else that are of like condition, we meekly submit unto his most gracious will and pleasure.

Finally, as we have cause sufficient why to think the practice of our church allowable in this behalf, so neither is ours the first which hath been of that mind. For to end with the words of Prosper10, “This law of supplication for all men,” (saith he,) “the devout zeal of all priests and of all faithful men doth hold with such full agreement, that there is not any part of all the world where Christian people do not use to pray in the same manner. The Church every where maketh prayers unto God not only for saints and such as already in Christ are regenerate, but for all infidels and enemies of the Cross of Jesus Christ, for all idolaters, for all that persecute Christ in his followers, for Jews to whose blindness the light of the Gospel doth not yet shine, for heretics and schismatics, who from the unity of faith and charity are estranged. And for such what doth the Church ask of God but this, that leaving their errors they may be converted unto him, that faith and charity may be given them, and that out of the darkness of ignorance they may come to the knowledge of his truth? which because they cannot themselves do in their own behalf as long as the sway of evil custom overbeareth them, and the chains of Satan detain them bound, neither are they able to break through those errors wherein they are so determinately settled, that they pay unto falsity the whole sum of whatsoever love is owing unto God’s truth; our Lord merciful and just requireth to have all men prayed for; that when we behold innumerable multitudes drawn up from the depth of so bottomless evils, we may not doubt but” (in part) “God hath done the thing we requested, nor despair but that being thankful for them towards whom already he hath shewed mercy, the rest which are not as yet enlightened, shall before they pass out of life be made partakers of the like grace. Or if the grace of him which saveth (for so we see it falleth out) overpass some, so that the prayer of the Church for them be not received, this we may leave to the hidden judgments of God’s righteousness, and acknowledge that in this secret there is a gulf, which while we live we shall never sound11.”

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Footnotes

  1. 1 Tim. ii. 3. ↩

  2. [1 Adm. ap. Whitg. Def. 739. “They pray that all men may be saved.” Whitgift, Answer, ibid. al. 253. “We do so indeed; and what can you allege why we should not do so? St. Paul saith, I exhort that supplications, &c. be made for all men. And adding the reason he saith, For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour: who will that all men shall be saved.”] ↩

  3. Sidon. Apol. (430-487.) lib. vi. Epist. [11. “Ad Eleutherium. Judæum præsens charta commendat; non quod mihi placeat error, perquem pereunt involuti, sed quia neminem ipsorum nos decet ex asse damnabilem pronunciare, dum vivit. In spe enim adhuc absolutionis est, cui suppetit posse converti.” Bibl. Patr. Colon. v. pars i. 1020. B.] ↩

  4. 1 Cor. xiii. 7. ↩

  5. Rom. ix. 3, 8; x. 1. ↩

  6. Matt. x. 11, 12. ↩

  7. Jer. xv. 1. ↩

  8. [Chr. Letter, p. 17. “Have we not cause to fear that the wittie schoolmen have seduced you, and by their conceited distinctions made you forget, ‘That you are neither able nor worthie to open and looke into the booke of God’s law, by which he guideth the worlde?’ (see before, b. i. c. ii. 5.) And yet you will say, There is in God an occasioned will.”Hooker, MS. note. “The booke of that law I presume no farther to looke into, then all men may and ought thereof to take notise. I have [not] adventured to ransack the bosome of God, and to search out what is there to be read concerning every particular man, as some have done. Vis divinæ magnitudinis et nota nobis objecit et ignota. Tertul. Contra Gent. p. 634. (p. 18. B. Paris. 1641. ‘Hoc est quod Deum æstimari facit, dum æstimari non capit: ita eum vis magnitudinis et notum hominibus objecit et ignotum.’) Dionys. (De Div. Nomin. c. vii. § 3.) p. 367.” (μήποτε οὐ̑ν ἀληθὲς εἰπει̑ν, ὅτι Θεὸν γινώσκομεν, οὐκ ἐκ τη̑ς αὐτου̑ ϕύσεως· ἄγνωστον γὰρ του̑το, καὶ πάντα λόγον καὶ νου̑ν ὑπεραι̑ρον· ἀλλ’ ἐκ τη̑ς πάντων τω̑νὄντων διατάξεως· … διὸ καὶ ἐνπα̑σιν ὁ Θεὸς γινώσκεται, καὶ χωρὶς πάντων· καὶ διὰ γνώσεως ὁ Θεὸς γινώσκεται, καὶ διὰ ἀγνωσίας· καὶ ἔστιν αὐτου̑ καὶ νόησις καὶ λόγος καὶ ἐπιστήμη καὶ ἐπαϕὴ καὶ αἴσθησις καὶ δόξα καὶ ϕαντασία καὶ ὄνομα καὶ τὰ ἄλλα πάντα· καὶ οὔτε νοει̑ται οὔτε λέγεται οὔτε ὀνομάζεται.) “and 433” (Ep. ad Caium, 111.) (λεγόμενον ἄρρητον μένει καὶ νοούμενον ἄγνωστον.) Ed. Paris. 1562.Again, Chr. Letter, ibid. “Where is that God you speake of in your first booke, ‘of whom and through whom and for whom are all things?’ ”Hooker, MS. note. “Even where He was in the highest heaven; from whence He beholdeth their untamed pride which speake of Him and His they neither care nor know what.” See Life of Hooker, p. 22, 23; and the references there.] ↩

  9. Hug. de Quat. Christi Volunt. [t. iii. 48 E.] “Propterea nihil contrarietatis erat, si Christus homo secundum affectum pietatis quam in humanitate sua assumpserat aliquid volebat, quod tamen secundum voluntatem divinam in qua cum Patre omnia disponebat futurum non esse præsciebat; quia et hoc ad veram humanitatem pertinebat, ut pietate moveretur; et hoc ad veram divinitatem, ut a sua dispositione non moveretur.” ↩

  10. Prosp. († 463.) de Vocat. Gen. lib. i. c. 12. inter opera Ambros. ↩

  11. [“Quam legem supplicationis ita omnium sacerdotum et omnium fidelium devotio concorditer tenet, ut nulla pars mundi sit, in qua hujusmodi orationes non celebrentur a populis Christianis. Supplicat ergo ubique Ecclesia Deo non solum pro sanctis et in Christo jam regeneratis, sed etiam pro omnibus infidelibus et inimicis crucis Christi, pro omnibus idolorum cultoribus, pro omnibus qui Christum in membris ipsius persequuntur, pro Judæis, quorum cæcitati lumen evangelii non refulget, pro hæreticis et schismaticis, qui ab unitate fidei et caritatis alieni sunt. Quid autem pro istis petit, nisi ut relictis erroribus suis, convertantur ad Deum, accipiant fidem, accipiant caritatem, et de ignorantiæ tenebris liberati, in agnitionem veniant veritatis? Quod quia ipsi præstare sibi nequeunt, malæ consuetudinis pondere oppressi et Diaboli vinculis alligati, neque deceptiones suas evincere valent, quibus tam pertinaciter inhæserunt, ut quantum amanda est veritas tantum diligant falsitatem; misericors et justus Dominus pro omnibus sibi vult hominibus supplicari: ut cum videmus de tam profundis malis innumeros erui, non ambigamus Deum præstitisse quod ut præstaret oratus est; et gratias agentes pro his qui salvi facti sunt, speremus etiam eos qui necdum illuminati sunt eodem divinæ gratiæ opere eximendos de potestate tenebrarum, et in regnum Dei, priusquam de hac vita exeant, transferendos. Quod si aliquos, sicut videmus accidere, salvantis gratia præteriret, et pro eis oratio Ecclesiæ recepta non fuerit; ad occulta divinæ justitiæ judicia referendum, et agnoscendum, secreti hujus profunditatem nobis in hac vita patere non posse.”] ↩

← Back to the beginning of V.49. Prayer that all men may find mercy, and of the will of God, that all men might be saved.