1 Cor. 15.24 speaketh of the second kinde of Kingdome which shall at the end of the world cease when the Churches warfare shall have an end and her immediate communion with God shall begin when the blessed and glorious Trinitie shall be all things in all men shall supply the want or absence of all things there shall not be because there shall be no need of them Magistrate Minister Word Sacrament Temple Sun or Moon Then cometh the end you tell us that then or deinceps should be afterwards but others think it were better rendred mox statim that is by and by or presently after Strange that the Apostle should say Every one in his own order and yet finde no order or time for the resurrection of the unjust if there be it is not mentioned with the just Answer Under this Unusquisque no other are comprehended but Christ they that are Christs the term here reacheth no further you may finde just and unjust mentioned elswhere Acts 24.15 I have hope towards God that there shall be a resurrection of the dead both of the just and the unjust The twentieth chapter of the Revelation the fourth and sixth verses do imply two Resurrections the first and the last yet not both of the bodie but one of the soul from the death of sin and errour during this world The other of the bodie out of the dust of the earth at the end of this world These two resurrections are plainly and distinctly laid down by our Saviour in the fifth chapter of S. Johns Gospel the first in the 25 verse The hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live The second in the 28 and 29 verses The hour is coming when all that are in the graves shall hear his voice and shall come forth It 's a Resurrection after they had been beheaded and therefore not in this life time now if that be not the last Resurrection then there is a Resurrection follows in which the rest shall rise ver 5.12 I answer but I neither rehearse nor retort your insulting words The fourth verse speaketh neither of bodies nor of resurrection but of souls onely and expresly I saw the souls of them that were beheaded and they lived and reigned to wit in heavenly glorie it is not said they rose again or lived again But the rest of the dead lived not again That is Satan detained many still in Paganism and Antichristianism who would not rise out of sin and errour Until the thousand years were finished That is Not all that time of Satans binding not that they rose afterward but they rose not at all it is not a limitation of the time but an absolute denial This is the first Resurrection Which is as if he had said thus This living again that I speak of is to be understood of the first Resurrection which is from the death in sin and I pray mark it well It is not the same life or kinde of living that is affirmed of those in the fourth verse and denied of those in the fifth it is said of those quod vixerint that they lived of these quod revixerint that they lived again And betwixt these two there is not to be conceived any Synonymus contradiction but a diversitie Metaphorical Those in the fourth verse lived the life of glorie those of the fifth verse did not arise or live again to the life of grace And you unskilfully put together the fifth verse with the twelfth whereas the fifth speaketh of the first Resurrection the twelfth of the second or last which is of the bodie at the day of Judgement Because you say that though you speak besides the ordinary rode yet you speak not besides the Scriptures I would desire your scholars whom you instructed in the Doctrine of the Millenarians though very obscurely in your Catechisme and have added now an explication or vindication of it That they would read over that chapter which you refer them to and which hath from the beginning of this errour been accounted the principal place of Scripture giving countenance to such belief that is the twentieth chapter of the Revelaion you say the dead in Christ shall rise first and reign with him a thousand years and then the rest shall rise to judgement of condemnaion by themselves apart Now in reading this chapter they shall finde that after the thousand years are expired there followeth what The Resurrection of the ungodly no. But Satan loosed Cog and Magog going forth to battel with armies of innumerable souldiers making war against the Saints and which are to be devoured with fire from heaven And whence should these wicked ones be there were none but the just living upon the earth for the rest of the dead lived not again for all that time If they read on to the 12 verse there Saint John seeth the general judgement at the last when both sea and land give up their dead they were judged every man according to their works good as well as bad and they were condemned who were not written in the book of life not those who were not raised at the first Resurrection And if the chief authority of Scripture for your opinion be so palpably impertinent and the proof taken thence so weak how weak is your opinion So much for the Scriptures which you bring Now we are to consider the judgement of the ancient orthodox To say nothing that Justin Martyr one of the ancientest of the primitive writers tells us that in his times all that were in all things orthodox Christians so beleeved Dial. with Tryph. So also Tertull lib. 3. contra Marc. and Lactant. lib. 7. the Reader that hath the books may if he please consult them I study brevitie You would not name Cerinthus who was somewhat more ancient though much more heterodox yet he it was who broached the opinion you speak of so witnesseth Saint Augustine in his eight book of heresies He held it indeed in a more gross manner some of the fathers following refined it from the more feculent parts Justin Martyr had it from the Jews with whom he conversed and his opinion is meerly Judaical that Jerusalem shall be built again enlarged and beautified and that the Prophets and the Patriarchs the Jews and the Proselytes who were before Christs coming shall meet there in a joyfull manner but not that all they who belong to Christ shall be raised with them as you teach And secondly you would not let us know because you studied brevitie what authorities your authours had for that their belief though fairly you give us leave to consult them Now I finde that the first place brought by the first of your three is out of Isa 65.22 As the days of a tree are the days of my people the meaning whereof is to be gathered from the words next before the similitude is taken from the matter there spoken
go thorow with so tedious an employment And yet when I pass by his objections and exceptions such as they are taking no notice of them I am afraid those Lay-men that he speaketh of pag. 102. that cannot read Latine and yet could see the faults of my arguings when they shall come and here espie moreover the want of my answerings will verily beleeve that I am quite put to silence in the respective particulars and can finde cut nothing to say in behalf of my self but am at Dulcarnon right at my wits end I must therefore desire you to remember that if I have omitted any thing it is not because I thought it could not answered but because I thought it needed no answer or else deserved none trusting that you my Reader will compare what is said on each side and satisfie your self So will I here take my leave of you rather than I will seem either to misdoubt or any further to prevent your observation CHAP. I. Touching the Epistle IF beginnings be ominous as they are held to be then may I presage at the very first what I shall finde in that which followeth for with these words you break into your discourse M r. H. observes a wrong method he condemns me as an Interpolator veritatis Title-page a Huckster of the truth before he brings in any proof or evidence Sentences prefixt in title-pages are not to be taken with any strict or rigorous application your self Sir have now set down five severall ones there wâ—h do intimate much worse against me before you did prove they were applicable to me and your very Title proclaims my Notes to be Mistakes before you give in any evidence that they were such at least in the Readers order and the progression that he must make This is just as if you should blame the Vintner for hanging forth his ivie when as yet you have not tasted his wine or before you know whether it comes not so near to vinegar that after the old quip of Palladas a bunch of Lettice or other Sallet-herbs may not better become the sign-post According to your new method which your self follow not he that writes a book must place the Title of it there where FINIS is wont to stand for when he hath concluded we will suppose that he hath made his Title and his promise good But Titles as I take it are usually impressed last As also Prefaces and Epistles though they be placed first are yet taken to be composed then when the work is done Pag. 1. Articles of Religion must not be injurious to the Churches growth or her members by tying them to the measure already obtained By the growth and measure you speak of you do not mean more clear illumination in respect of the minde or evident belief which is called Gradual Revelation for that is no way hindred by tying Christian people to Articles and forms of Confession But I finde where your trouble lyeth you are for Doctrinal Revelations which are in regard of the object or things revealed as if there were some points of our Confession that had no certainty and some others that being not commonly known are not yet received into it which may hereafter be found needfull to be beleeved as Chiliasme or Christs temporall kingdome and many other old lights that might again be set up new if once the people could be brought to forget those terms of prejudice Donatist Anabaptist Pelagian We had not as yet had our Articles and Catechismes if Popish Articles had not been broke through or gone beyond Because Articles and Confessions were once abused must they not now be made use of Simile est mater erroris The Anabaptists thought they must needs oppose Luther as much as Luther opposed the Pope How shall the people ever come to be grounded and rooted in the Faith if they be taught to think that they are still upon uncertainties no otherwise than they were before the Reformation I fear the late Synod went more from the English Catechisme than mine hath done by far especially in the points the Reviewer sticks at Here you make divers Parallels namely betwixt the Church-Catechisme that of the Synod and your own But I have not yet made any collation or comparison betwixt the Assemblies Catechisme and any other And I think there is no comparison to be made betwixt so great a number of men so well qualifyed whatsoever their Authority was pretending to walk in the beaten path of the reformed Churches And your self being but one singular person without any colour of Authoritie professing to forsake the common road And he that readeth the Title-page of your Catechisme and observeth what points you there promise to lay open would think that you ought in fair dealing to have made the nine and thirty Articles your Standard and rule of comparison for They contain the established Doctrine of the Church of England touching those controverted points but in the childrens Catechisme nothing is laid down purposely concerning them because it was not thought although you think so that they did sute the capacitie of children Yet because you seem to appeal to the English Catechisme as making much for you I am willing to deal with you there and thither we will go Although I expect you should evade and shift off all that can be brought against you out of it or else flie off from it as not obliging you in all things but onely in some things that you approve And these two I reckon to be much alike I know little difference in this matter betwixt you who think that Confessions which are to be subscribed unto be prejudicial to Christian growth and libertie and others whosoever they be who make confessions and articles useless by opposing and eluding their manifest meaning Out of the Church-Catechisme I propound to you two arguments in brief against your common Doctrine The first out of these words The holy Ghost sanctifyeth all the elect people of God Where is taught that Gods Spirit sanctifyeth those that be elected elected first and then sanctifyed You teach quite otherwise that God electeth those that are sanctifyed chooseth the godly man as you wrest the Psalm and those that beleeve and that are called that is engrafted into Christs mystical Bodie and you cannot finde where the Uncalled are said to be elected Secondly the English Catechisme teacheth the scholar thus That he is not able to serve God without his special Grace and he that hath learned this lesson well will never be brought to answer to the name Universalist or beleeve he can do it by Universal Grace So here is no accord in the points we stick at Sect. 3. His third page utters this uncharitable slander of me that I dread and deprecate all national establishment of Religion as sanguinary persecution Reply 'T is false That God establish his true Religion in this Nation I pray for and neither dread nor deprecate Is there no way to build
have some certain qualitie which in this Metaphor of the book of life plainly is answerable to their proper names You who have gone so far with them or after them are in danger to go further What irreligious principles they that plead for their libertie of will are forced to maintain I know not That you might soon have seen by that which follows there By Their libertie I mean such libertie as they plead for and such as cannot stand with certaintie of Prescience Say they For any one to exhort another to do that which he knoweth before hand he will not do is to dissemble such libertie as must be free not onely from coaction or compulsion but from necessitie of infallibilitie as to the event which necessitie is incident to things contingent and fortuitous for events necessarie contingent chanceable are called so and differenced so in respect of their second causes not in respect of the first or supreme cause for Quicquid est quando est necessariò est any thing that is must needs be so then when it is so That Saul after he was wearied with seeking up and down the countrey for his fathers cattel should on such a day and such an hour of the day meet with the Prophet Samuel was to Saul then when it came to pass as certain as that the sun should set that night or did rise that day that is it was most certain because it was present But to God all things are certain and present that shall be as certain to him though future as to us though present Socinus therefore was driven and if he had not been driven and enforced to it he would never have done it to denie and impugne Divine Prescience and that in order to denial of Divine Decrees and to maintain Quod non est certum non est scibile nec futurum whatsoever comes to pass and doth not certainly come to pass is not capable of being known no more than factum infectum fieri is capable to be done And the Socinians in Compendiolo Negant admissa infallabili omnium futurorm Praescientiâ refelli posse dogma de Praedestinatione and whether they speak reason or no Ger. Vossius can tell whose words are these Hist Pelag. c. 6. Th. 15. Nisi negarc volumus Deum praescire quid homo pro quibusque circumstantiis sit acturus fateri etiam COGIMUR Deum certis hominibus Gratiam praeparâsse quâ certo infallibiliter salventur aliis verò hujusmodi Gratiam non praeparâsse that is Unless we will say that God doth not foreknow what man will do upon such and such circumstances we cannot but of necessitie confess that he hath for some certain men prepared such grace whereby they shall certainly and infallibly be saved and not prepared such grace for others If Faith be Gods gift and if he will give it to whom he will give it this is that predestination which you endeavour what you can to fright the world withall That therefore which you call in this chapter a horrible errour and I called an irreligious principle you must fall to and defend by rational consequence unless you give over your horrible and irreligious manner of reviling Gods decrees I fear this Gentleman is so far from thinking that God did not know before that he thinks he decreed necessitated Adam to sin Would I follow his course in fastening upon him the sayings and judgements of other men of his minde I might finde passages enough to that purpose in many of them to render him and his opinions odious but Mr P. hath done it so fully that I shall but actum agere do what is done already and therefore I shall leave the Reader for that to him Although I do think that you have more minde to slander than cause to fear yet I will now tell you 1. I do not beleeve God did decree sin but I think you beleeve that he did decree the permission of sin 2. In those things which are decreed to come to pass Gods decree inferreth no necessitie upon inferiour causes or agents because he decreeth all things to come to pass according to their kinde natural agents to act naturally voluntarie agents voluntarily So of necessary contingent and casual agents I pray suffer your self to be informed a little better by Dr. P. Baro pag. 321. in explication of this position Dei Decretum pravae voluntatis libertatem non tollit Therefore I shall leave you for that to him But if you have so much leasure as to trouble your self about others and what it is that they think and that you would not be afraid there where no fear is I pray let all your fear in this matter be for them that call it A gross solecism to imagine that there should be one cause of the act and another of the obliquitie or sinfulness of the act and that think it is as impossible to separate the wickedness of the act from the act that is wicked as it is to distinguish the roundness of the globe from the globe that is round So that he which is the Authour of the one must be the Authour of the other also yet the Apostle Paul said Acts 17.28 In him we live and move Let it be for them who tell you it must be a Metaphysical head that can determine how God should work by evil instruments and not be guiltie of the evil and yet the Apostle said Acts 3.18 He hath So fulfilled Let it be for them that think he who withholdeth a thing which being present would hinder an event is the cause of that event and in whose power it is that a thing be not done to him it is imputed when it is done and he that withdraweth the light is the cause of that which followeth for want of the light And yet no man that hath his reason left entire to him can imagine that the sun which is all light having no darkness in it can be the cause when it setteth of the shadow of the night It is an easie matter to make any opinions seem odious to those men that are full gorged with prejudice against them Every thing feeds according to the kinde and constitution Torva leaena alupum scquitur I can tell of some who in the doctrines of the Church of England wherein they have been educated have been verie much confirmed by the matter and the manner of some mens writings against them And as for those men that take such pains to make the opinions you speak of to be odious I do wish and if it might be I would advise them that they would at last forbear and not please themselves in so odious a practise whether these opinions be true or false is uncertain it is at least probable that they are the Truth and upon these reasons First it because very many of these men by their own confession were of the verie same minde in these points of doctrine and held that
For what should hinder Not all that are drawn come whether that be so or no may soon be known by considering other expressions of the same thing in that place John 6.37 All that the Father giveth shall come and v. 65. No man can come unto me except it were given unto him of my Father and v. 45. Every man that hath heard and learned cometh and v. 44. No man can come except the Father draw him To give and to draw and to teach are of the same import All that are given and all that are taught and likewise all that are drawn do come Your Masters have thought that they eluded this word of Drawing and fairly came off from all force of argument from thence when they found out that it was to be interpreted by teaching in the very next verse following they shall be all taught of God not remembring that Gods teaching is not like mens and that none teacheth like him No nor so much as considering how that it follows in that very verse Every man that hath heard and learned cometh Which as it wholly overthroweth that evasion of theirs manifestly also sheweth the falshood and absurditie of what you here say not all that are drawn come In your 8 Section you yield that Gods Grace doth remove infidelitie but not give faith unless thus explicated Faith or power to beleeve this I take to be all one with what some others say that He doth not give credere but onely posse credere and for this you quote Hos 11.4 I did take off the yoke on their jaws and laid meat before them This is spoken of the civil state of the Israelites and when you have made it appear that the yoke there mentioned is to be taken for a muzzel you are driven to betake your self to a vein of allegorizing for proof of your opinion when it is well known that many plain and direct places prove the contrary Your other texts shew what God doth outwardly to a Nation or Church visible but do not shew that he doth no more than so in the conversion of a particular person Sect. 9. Therefore he may think with himself if I be of the former I must be brought in take what course I will and if of the other I must perish take the best course I can Therefore I had as good take the present good things while I may have them and live as I list He must needs be a man absurd and unreasonable and for the time given over of God that shall in earnest speak in his heart after this manner And if ever he return to his right wits he will begin thus rather to argue with himself If God hath chosen me to be a Saint in heaven and doth intend to bring me to glory then I must out of all doubt beleeve and repent and amend my ways and continue in Gods holy laws to my lives end knowing that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. And although the book of election be now closed up and a seal set upon it yet there is an inscription upon that seal which I can easily see and read Let every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity But if God doth intend to condemn me to Death eternal it will be for my wickedness and for my rebellion and for being so graceless as to argue thus scornfully against Gods mercie and the dutie that I ow to him I will therefore with my utmost diligence apply my self to the faith and fear of his most sacred name and take heed while I live of such desperate and blasphemous thoughts knowing they proceed from none but the Devil who out of his endless malice to God and envie towards me would perswade me to be a more sot in things concerning life eternal than he dareth to perswade me to be in matters of this life and bodily health For if I knew assuredly that God did now purpose to prolong my life to such a term of years it were too gross a temptation to be put upon me to make me beleeve that it were well done of me henceforth to cast off all care of providing food and raiment and avoiding deadly dangers and not to call for a boat when I am to pass over the water and when I go into the field to battel to leave my armour behinde me In those things therefore that far more nearly concern me I will never be so vile an hypocrite or in effect so forlorn an atheist as to discourse and conclude in such a sort upon supposal of Gods foreknowledge and determination whatsoever some have told me I may do CHAP. XIII Whether all in Adam be pardoned THe Doctrine maintained by you in this chapter is That although all sins whatsoever springing from the sin of Adam be forgiven as of due debt through Gods mercie and the sacrifice of his Son Nevertheless by the manifestation of this his Death and Sacrifice and by occasion of this his goodness made known to men all their actual sins become new debts because they are done against Gods Grace and Truth shining upon all men In defence and explication of this detestable Doctrine You afford us a twofold distinction the first is this such sinning as doth arise from force of natural corruption is not charged upon men but onely sinning voluntarily and unnecessitatedly against the Truth striving to reclaim them pag. 63. The second distinction is so fine and of so great subtility that it flies quite away from all good sense You distinguish of sins considered before or without Christs coming from sins considered as before or without his coming and you ask pag. 68. if I cannot so abstract as to consider them as in the root and according to what they had onely by virtue of that from what they are as against Grace vouchsafed But what say you in the mean time to those sins that are both natural or in some sort necessitated by corruption of nature and voluntarie too as many sins if not the greatest part of them are Shall they be forgiven as natural and punished as voluntary Consider sins as before or without Christs coming they would yet have been against light the light of nature and should not they have been charged upon any man because they were not against the light of grace or the Gospel And know you not that to love darkness more than light resisting of the truth and hatred to be reformed and offending against mercy and goodness are all of them as necessarily derived from the root you speak of and are as truly parts and products of our hereditary pravitie as any sins are whatsoever you can name The chief place of Scripture you alledge is Joh. 15.22 24. If I had not come they had not had sin it had not been charged upon them You make a twofold coming of Christ of this sort One as he came spiritually in his light and truth into the world in all ages upon the