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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55299	An answer to the discourse of Mr. William Sherlock, touching the knowledge of Christ, and our union and communion with him by Edward Polhill ..., Esquire.	Polhill, Edward, 1622-1694?	1675 (1675)	Wing P2749; ESTC R13514	277,141	650

such men can be supposed to relapse into a sinful state God will cease to love them therefore they found the immutability of Gods Love to them on their perseverance in doing good God loves all good men but if they cease to be good he also must cease to love Herein the immutability of Gods Love consists not that he always loves the same person but that he always loves for the same reason For it is no perfection to be so fixt in our kindness that where we love once we will always love whatever reason there may be to alter our affections for by this means we may love undeserving Objects which is the greatest degeneracy of Love but the perfection of Love consists in loving deserving Objects and in loving upon honourable reasons and the immutability of Love consists in loving always for the same reasons which is the only foundation of a virtuous immutability The reason of Christs Love to any person is Holiness and Obedience If any love me he will keep my words and my Father will love him and we will come to him and make our abode with him Joh. 14.23 The unchangeableness of his Love is seen in this that he will continue to love while we continue to obey him If ye shall keep my Commandments that is continue to do so Ye shall abide in my Love I will continue to love you As I have kept my Fathers Commandments and abide in his Love Joh. 15.20 This is the immutability of the Divine Nature that God always acts upon steddy constant Principles that whatever changes there are in the World which may occasion very different administrations in his providence yet he is the same still and never changes Whereas should God always love the same person however he changed and altered God must change and alter too because though he still loves the same person yet he must love for different or contrary reasons or for none at all and that is the much greater change of the two to alter the reason than the Object of Love If God love a good man because he is good and continue to love him when he is wicked his love is a mutable thing which can love goodness or wickedness which can love for none or for contrary reasons But if God always loves true goodness and good men and never loves any other whatever change there be in Creatures God is the same still and unchangeable in his Love The Author admits an immutable Love in God towards goodness Answer but the Scripture asserts an immutable Love in God towards persons He hath chosen us before the foundation of the world Eph. 1.4 Electing Love is eternal and therefore immutable Non enim est vera aeternitas ubi orttur nova voluntas nec est immortalis voluntas quae alia et alia est An eternal choice must be ever the same and after one there cannot rise another The foundation of God standeth sure having this seal the Lord knoweth them that are his 2 Tim. 2.19 Election which is the foundation is sure and Gods fore-knowledge which includes invariable Love in it is the seal of it The Book of Life hath all the names of the Elect written in it and Gods Love is the Seal that confirms it whom he did predestinate them he also called and whom he called them he also justified and whom he justified them he also glorified Rom. 8.30 This Golden Chain of Grace comprises in it certain individual persons as the words whom and them which fasten every link of it doth evidently import and that which holds all the links of it together is immutable Love Nay besides Scripture evidence reason will evince this immutable Love of the Elect without this there can be no design of a Church and without the design of a Church Christs blood must needs be shed irrationally or upon a meer peradventure I say without this there can be no design of a Church for the design of a Church must comprise in it those individual persons which shall make up a Church and undertake that they shall infallibly believe and persevere till they come to Heaven it must first comprise in it those individual persons which shall make up a Church or else it is lame and imperfect unworthy of the Divine Wisdom and Perfection running much after this rate as if God should say I design a Church but I care not of whom it consists which is much one as if God should design an Heaven and not what Stars should be in it or an Earth and not what Plants should be there All the members in mans body are written in Gods book Psal 139.16 And can any man imagine that those who should make up the Mystical Body of Christ as so many Members thereof are not certainly designed God calleth them by name Joh. 10.3 Your names are all down in the Book of Life Phil. 4.3 To design a Church and not who is too weak a thing for the all-wise Deity Again the design of a Church must undertake that those individual persons shall believe and persevere unless this be granted the design of a Church must be framed thus God gives a Saviour and a Gospel in common and over and above a power to men to believe and persevere and so though the issue hang upon mans will hopes for a Church But in Truth this is not to design a Church but the possibility of one there may be one as it may happen and there may be none And is this like that Divine Providence which is perfect in all things and especially in the great design of a Church Nay is it probable upon these terms that any should believe and persevere Innocent Adam and yet alas how soon was that Star shot was more likely to stand in his integrity than any man since upon those terms hath been to believe and persevere The disparity clears it The Divine principles in Adam sweetly inclined him to obedience But the power of believing in men doth not incline but only put the will in aequilibrio The Divine Principles in Adam were pure and without mixture But the power of believing hath in the same heart where it dwells an inmate of corruption which continually counter-works it In innocency the temptation stood without a courting the senses But after the Fall it makes nearer approaches as having a party within ready to open and betray every faculty These things considered methinks every one who with humble eyes looks on that glass of Creature defectibility which was made out of the broken pieces of fallen Adam should conclude it very improbable that any one in all the World upon those terms should believe and persevere it being no less than a proud thought for any to imagine that upon such great disparities he could act his part better than Adam did And is it reasonable that God should found the design of a Church upon such improbabilities The first Covenant in which the stock of Grace

for we must bring nothing to Christ with us the marriage is consummated without it and then we have less need of it than before for then we are adorned with Christs Beauty holy with his holiness delivered by his expiation righteous with his righteousness which gives us an actual right to Glory we need no righteousness of our own to save us which were to suppose a defect in the righteousness of Christ unto which I answer Though a man with his arms of rebellion in his hands cannot possibly whilest in that posture close with Christ yet I take it Faith which espouses Christ doth precede true Obedience Without faith saith the Apostle it is impossible to please God Heb. 11.6 Without saith saith our Church in the Homily of good works All that is done of us is but dead before God although the work seem never so gay and glorious before man even as the picture graven or painted is but a dead representation of the thing it self so be the works of all unfaithful persons before God they do appear to be lively works and indeed they be but dead not availing to the everlasting life they be but shadows and shews of lively and good things and not good and lively things indeed thus our Church excellently which tells us what manner of Obedience we can bring to Christ After our espousals to Christ by faith Obedience follows as a fruit and effect of Faith though the Author fasten this opinion expresly on those whom he opposes calling them in sport intimate acquaintances of Christ yet our Church tells us in the twelfth Article That good works do spring necessarily out of a true and lively Faith Christs righteousness makes us righteous in Justification but doth it thence follow that Obedience is needless No sure It is a thing noted in the Papists that they confound Justification and Sanctification together but we must not do so if it be necessary to do Gods will or promote his Glory or to give evidences of our Faith in and gratitude to Christ or to walk in the way to Heaven and Salvation then such is Obedience but the Author cannot understand this gratitude unless our Righteousness and Obedience be due to Christ in thankfulness to him for saving us without Obedience and Righteousness which is just as broad as long and we get nothing by the bargain To which I answer our Obedience is a due gratitude to Christ who saves us by his Blood and Righteousness and and that without a perfect personal sinless Obedience in our selves and withal it is necessary as a proof of our faith and as the way to Heaven which our Saviour hath chalked out to us The Soul saith Dr. Owen consents to take Christ on his own terms Mr. Sherlock to save him in his own way and saith Lord I would have had thee and salvation in my way that it might have been partly of mine endeavours and as it were by the works of the Law but I am now willing to receive thee and to be saved in thy way meerly by Grace that is Without doing any thing without obeying of thee as the Author doth interpret him Without doing any thing Answer without obeying of thee Is this the Doctors meaning Do his words import so Nothing more remote from him he shews how the Soul closes with Christ and takes him on his own terms it will not now be justified by its own works or legal righteousness but by Christ and his righteousness it will not now endeavour in its own strength but under the duct of Grace this is his plain meaning For before the words quoted he speaks of accepting Christ as Lord and Saviour and after them of giving up our selves to be ruled by the Spirit which cannot be without Obedience It s true the Author calls this a pretty complement but the Doctor speaks it as his serious judgment In the eighth Chapter of the book quoted he tells us Obedience is indispensibly necessary if Gods Sovereignty is to be owned if his Love to be regarded if the whole work of the ever blessed Trinity for us in us be of any moment our Obedience is necessary Thus fully the Doctor who yet is here construed by the Author to exclude Obedience what measure this is let others judge The Soul gives up it self to be ruled by the Spirit of Christ to be passively Mr. Sherlock not actively good to submit as needs it must to the irresistible working of the Divine Spirit and to obey when it can rebel no longer Thus the Author sports with his Opposites Touching irresistible Grace Answer I have spoken before the Soul in the first act of Conversion is meerly passive but after the Divine Principles infused acta agit it moves under the sweet influences of the Spirit without whose inspiration as our Church tells us in the thirteenth Article Works done are not pleasant to God yet that inspiration doth not as the Author hints force the will of man but sweetly lead it in a way congruous to its liberty And now the Author shuts up this Section thus I have given thee Reader an entire scheme of a new Religion resulting from an acquaintance with Christs person in all its principles and practices I think there needs no more to expose it to the scorn of every considering man who cannot but discover how inconsistent the religion of Christs Person and of his Gospel are To which I shall only say the Author hath done his endeavour to expose his Opposites to scorn but how new their Religion is how inconsistent with the Gospel and how just the scorn I leave to considering men to determine SECT III. THese men pretend to learn a Religion from Christs Person Mr. Sherlock but this is at best to build Religion upon uncertain conjectures or ambiguous reasons suppose them to be cautions yet what assurance can they have that their inferences are true and as a reason of this the Author afterwards adds There is not a natural and necessary connexion between the person of Christ and what he did and suffered and the salvation of Mankind the Incarnation Life Death Resurrection of Christ were available to those ends for which God designed them but the vertue and efficacy of them doth depend upon God's Institution and Appointment and therefore can be known only by Revelation We cannot draw a Conclusion from the Person of Christ which his Gospel hath not expresly taught because we can know no more of the design of it than what is there revealed They learn from Christ's Person Answer but what without the Gospel No by no means without this they cannot pretend not to know whether there be such a Person as Christ or no or what are the Ends of his Incarnation Life Death and Resurrection These depend upon God's appointment and that is set forth in the Gospel But having the Gospel as an outward Medium they see Christ and many Mysteries in him