and now follow all mutual conjugal Affections which on Christs part consist in Delight Valuation Pity Compassion Bounty on the Saints part in Delight Valuation Chastity Duty But I have already corrected this fooling with Scripture Metaphors and Phrases It might perhaps not unbecome this Author to be a little more sparing of his Correction unless his Authority were more then it is and his skill also in the mannagement of it For at present those whom he attempts upon are altogether insensible of any Effects of his severity But whereas he seems much at a loss how to evidence his own Wisdom any other way than by calling them Fools with whom he hath to do it is sufficient to plead his Excuse But what is it that he is here so displeased at as unfit for a Man of his Wisdom to bear withal and therefore calls it Fooling Is it that there is a conjugal Relation between Christ and the Church That he is the Bridegroom and Husband of the Church and that the Church is his Bride and Spouse That he becomes so unto it by a voluntarily Gracious Act of his Love and that the Church enters into that Relation with him by their acceptance of him in that Relation voluntarily giving up themselves unto him in Faith Love and Obedience suited thereunto Is it that he loveth his Church and cherisheth it as an Husband Or that the Church gives up it self in chaste and holy obedience unto him as her Spouse Or is it my way and manner of expressing these things wherewith he is so provoked If it be the latter I desire he would for his own satisfaction take notice that I contemn his censures and appeal to the Judgment of those who have more understanding and experience in these things than for ought I can discern by his Writings he hath yet attained unto If it be the former they are all of them so proved and confirmed from the Scripture in that very Discourse which he excepteth against as that he is not able to answer or reply one serious word thereunto Indeed to deny it is to renounce the Gospel and the Catholick Faith It is therefore to no purpose for me here to go over again the Nature of this Relation between Christ and the Church wherein really and truly it doth consist what it is the Scripture instructeth us in thereby what is that Love Care Tenderness of Christ which it would have us thence to Learn and what is our own duty with respect thereunto together with the Consolation thence arising the whole of this work is already discharged in that discourse which these impertinent Cavils are raised against and that suitably to the sence of the Church in all Ages and of all sound Expositors of those very many places of Scripture which I have urged and insisted on to that purpose Let him if he please a little lay aside the severity of his Corrections and befooling of Men and answer any Material passage in the whole discourse if he be able or discover any thing in it not agreeable to the Analogy of Faith or the sence of the Ancient Church if he can And though he seem both here and in some of his ensuing pages to have a particular 〈◊〉 of what is cited or improved ou◠of the Book of Canticles to this purpose yet if he either deny that that whole Book doth mystically express the conjugal Relation that is between Christ and his Church with their mutual affections and delight in each other or that the places particularly insisted on by me are not duly applyed unto their proper intention I can at least confirm them both by the Authority of such persons as whose Antiquity and Learning will exercise the utmost of his confidence in calling them Fools for their pains From hence for sundry Pages he is pleased to give me a little respite whilest he diverts his severity unto another unto whose Will and Choyce what to doe in it I shall leave his peculiar Concern as knowing full well how easie it is for him to vindicate what he hath written on this Subject from his impertinent Exceptions if he please In the mean time if this Author supposeth to adde unto the Reputation of his Ingenuity and Modesty by assaulting with a few pitifull Cavils a Book written with so much Learning Judgement and Moderation as that is which he excepts against not daring in the mean time to contend with it in any thing of the Expository or the Argumentative part of it but only to discover a malevolent desire to obstruct the use which it hath been of and may yet further be to the Church of God I hope he will not find many Rivals in such a Design For my part I do suppose it more becoming Christian Modesty and Sobriety where men have laboured according to their Ability in the Explication of the Mysteries of Christian Religion and that with an avowed intention to promote Holiness and Gospel Obedience to accept of what they have attained wherein we can come unto a Complyance with them then passing by whatever we cannot but approve of or are not able to disprove to make it our Business to cavil at such Expressions as either we do not like or hope to pervert and abuse to their disadvantage Pag. 296. he returns again to my Discourse and fiercely pursues it for sundry Leafs in such a Manner as becomes him and is usual with him That part of my Book which he deals withall is from pag. 176. unto pag. 187. And if any person of Ingenuity and Judgement will be pleased but to peruse it and to compare it with this mans Exceptions I am secure it will need no farther Vindication but as it is represented in his Cavilling way it is impossible for any man either to conceive what is the true Design of my Discourse or what the Arguments wherewith what I assert is confirmed which he doth most unduely pretend to give an Account of For he so chops and changes and alters at his pleasure going backwards and forwards and that from one thing to another without any regard unto a Scholastick or Ingenuous Debate of any thing that might be called a Controversie meerly to seek out an Appearance of Advantage to vent his cavilling Exceptions as no Judgement can Rationally be made of his whole Discourse but only that he had a mind to have cast Aspersions on mine if he had known how But such stuffe as it is we must now take the Measure of it and consider of what Use it may be And first he quotes those words from my Book That Christ fulfilled all Righteousness as he was Mediator and that whatever he did as Mediator he did it for them whose Mediator he was or in whose stead and for whose Good he executed the Office of a Mediator before God and hence it is that his compleat and perfect Obedience to the Law is reckoned to us He addes This is well said if it were
contrary and declared those Resolutions as I had occasion Neither was it until very lately that my second Thoughts came to a compliance with the desires of some others to consider my own peculiar concernment therein And this is all which I now design for the examination of the Opinions which this Author hath veuted under the countenance of publick License whatever they may think I know to be more the concernment of other Men than mine Nor yet do I enter into the Consideration of what is written by this Author with the least respect unto my self or my own reputation which I have the satisfaction to conceive not to be prejudiced by such pittiful Attempts nor have I the least desire to preserve it in the minds of such Persons as wherein it can suffer on this occasion But the Vindication of some sacred Truths petulantly traduced by this Author seems to be cast on me in an especial manner because he hath opposed them and endeavoured to expose them to scorn as declared in my Book whence others more meet for this work might think themselves discharged from taking notice of them Setting aside this consideration I can freely give this sort of Men leave to go on with their Revilings and Scoffings until they are weary or ashamed which as far as I can discern upon Consideration of their Ability for such a Work and their Confidence therein is not like to be in haste At least they can change their course and when they are out of breath in pursuit of one sort of calumnies betake themselves unto another Witness the late malicious and yet withal ridiculous Reports that they have divulged concerning me even with respect unto Civil Affairs and their industry therein For although they were such as had not any thing of the least probability or likelihood to give them countenance yet were they so impetuously divulged and so readily entertained by many as made me think there was more than the common artifices of Calumny employed in their raising and improvement especially considering what Persons I can justly charge those Reports upon But in this course they may proceed whilst they please and think convenient I find my self no more concerned in what they Write or say of this Nature than if it were no more But 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is the Doctrine traduced only that I am concerned about and that as it hath been the Doctrine of the Church of England It may be it will be said for there is no security against Confidence and Imodesty backed with secular Advantages that the Doctrinal Principles asserted in this Book are agreeable with the Doctrine of the Church in former Times and therefore those opposed in it such as are condemned thereby Hereabout I shall make no long contest with them who once discover that their Minds are by any means emboldned to undertake the Defence of such shameless Untruths Nor shall I multiply Testimonies to prove the Contrary which others are more concerned to do if they intend not to betray the Religion of that Church with whose Preservation and Defence they are intrusted Only because there are Ancient Divines of this Church who I am perswaded will be allowed with the most to have known as well the Doctrine of it and as firmly to have adhered thereunto as this Author who have particularly spoken unto most of the Things which he hath opposed or rather reproached I shall transcribe the Words of one of them whereby he and those who employ him may be minded with whom they have to do in those things For as to the Writers of the Antient Church there is herein no regard had unto them He whom I shall Name is Mr. Hooker and that in his Famous Book of Ecclesiastical Policy who in the 5th Book thereof and 56 Paragraph thus discourseth We have hitherto spoken of the Person and of the presence of Christ. Participation is that mutual inward hold which Christ hath of us and we of him in such sort that each possesseth other by way of special Interest Property and Inherent Copulation And after the interposition of some things concerning the mutual in-being and Love of the Father and the Son he thus proceedeth We are by Nature the Sons of Adam When God Created Adam he Created us and as many as are descended from Adam have in themselves the Root out of which they Spring The Sons of God we neither are all nor any of Us otherwise than only by Grace and Favour The Sons of God have Gods own Natural Son as a second Adam from Heaven whose Race and Progeny they are by Spiritual and Heavenly Birth God therefore loving Eternally his Son he must needs Eternally in him have loved and preferred before all others them which are Spiritually sithence descended and sprung out of him These are in God as in their Saviour and not as in their Creator only It was the Purpose of his saving Goodness his Saving Power and his Saving Wisdom which inclined it self towards them They which thus are in God eternally by their intended admission to Life have by Vocation or Adoption God actually now in them as the Artificer is in that Work which his hand doth presently frame Life as all other Gifts and Benefits groweth originally from the Father and cometh not to Us but by the Son nor by the Son to any of Us in particular but through the Spirit For this cause the Apostle wisheth to the Church of Corinth the Grace our Lord Jesus Christ and the Love of God and the Fellowship of the Holy Ghost which three Saint Peter comprehendeth in one the Participation of the Divine Nature We are therefore in God through Christ Eternally according to that intent and purpose whereby we are chosen to be made his in this present World before the World it self was made We were in God through the knowledg which is had of Us and the Love which is born towards Us from Everlasting But in God we actually are no longer than only from the Time of our Actual Adoption into the Body of his true Church into the Fellowship of his Children For his Church he knoweth and loveth so that they that are in the Church are thereby known to be in him Our being in Christ by Eternal foreknowledg Saveth Us not without our actual and real Adoption into the Fellowship of his Saints in this present World For in him we actually are by our actual incorporation into that society which hath him for their head and doth make together with him one Body He and they in that respect having one Name For which cause by vertue of this Mystical conjunction we are of him and in him even as though our very flesh and bones should be made continuate with his We are in Christ because he knoweth and Loveth Us even as parts of himself No Man is actually in him but they in whom he actually is For he which hath not the Son of
therein But that there is not Grace and Mercy declared and tendred in the Gospel also unto all sorts of sinners under any qualifications whatever who upon its Invitation will come to God through Christ by Faith and Repentance is an impious Imagination A Discourse much of the same Nature followes concerning the Love of Christ after he hath treated his Person and Grace at his pleasure And this he takes occasion for from some Passages in my Book as formerly scraped together from several places so as he thought fit and convenient unto his Purpose Page 209. Thus the Love of Christ is an Eternal Love because his Divine Nature is Eternal and it is an Unchangeable Love because his Divine Nature is Unchangeable and his Love is Fruitfull for it being the Love of God it must be effectual and fruitfull in producing all the things which he willeth unto his Beloved He loves Life Grace Holiness into us loves us into Covenant loves us into Heaven This is an Excellent Love indeed which doth all for us and leaves nothing for us to do We owe this Discovery to an Aquaintance with Christ's Person or rather with his Divine Nature for the Gospel is very silent in this matter All that the Gospel tells us is that Christ Loveth Sinners so as to die for them that he Loves Good men who believe and obey his Gospel so as to save them that he continues to Love them while they contitinue to be good but hates them when they return to their old Vices and therefore I say there is great Reason for Sinners to fetch their Comforts not from the Gospel but from the Person of Christ which as far excells the Gospel as the Gospel excells the Law I do suppose the Expressions mentioned are for the substance of them in my Book and shall therefore only enquire what it is in them which he excepteth against and for which I am reproachched as one that hath an Acquaintance with Christ's person which is now grown so Common and Trite an Expression that were it not condited unto some Mens Pallats by its Prophaneness it would argue a great barrenness in this Author's Invention that can vary no more in the Topick of Reviling It had been well if his Licenser had accommodated him with some part of his Talent herein But what is it that is excepted against Is it that the love of Christ as he is God is Eternal or is it that it is Unchangeable or is it that it is Fruitful or effective of Good things unto the persons Beloved The Philosopher tells us that to Love for any one is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is this Efficacy of the Love of Christ which must bear all the present Charge The meaning of my words therefore is that the Love of Christ is unto us the Cause of Life Grace Holiness and the Reward of Heaven And because it is in the Nature of Love to be effective according unto the Ability of the person Loving of the Good which it wills unto the Object beloved I expressed it as I thought meet by Loving these things to us And I am so far on this occasion and the severe Reflection on me for an Acquaintance with Christ from altering my thoughts that I say still with Confidence he who is otherwise minded is no Christian. And if this Man knows not how the Love of Christ is the Cause of Grace and Glory how it is effective of them and that in a perfect consistency with all other Causes and means of them and the Necessity of our Obedience he may do well to abstain a little from Writing until he is better informed But saith he this is an Excellent Love indeed which doth all for us and leaves us nothing to do But who told him so who ever said so Doth he think that if our Life Grace Holiness Glory be from the Love of Christ Originally Causally by vertue of his Divine Gracious operations in us and towards us that there is no Duty incumbent on them who would be made partakers of them or use or improve them unto their proper ends Shall we then to please him say that we have neither Life nor Grace nor Holiness nor Glory from the Love of Christ but whereas most of them are our own Duties we have them wholly from our selves Let them do so who have a mind to renounce Christ and his Gospel I shall coâ—e into no Partnership with them For what he adds all that the Gospel teaches us c. He should have done well to have said as far as he knows which is a Limitation with a witness If this be all the Gospel which the Man knows and Preaches I pity them whom he hath taken under his Instruction Doth Christ in his Love do nothing unto the quickning and Conversion of Men Nothing to the Purification and Sanctification of Believers Nothing as to their Consolation and Establishment Nothing as to the Administration of strength against Temptations Nothing as to Supplies of Grace in the increase of Faith Love and Obedience c. This Ignorance or Prophaneness is greatly to be bewailed as his ensuing Scoff repeated now usque ad Nauseam about an opposition between Christ and his Gospel is to be despised And if the Lord Christ hath no other Love but what this man will allow the state of the Church in this world depends on a very slender thread But attempts of this Nature will fall short enough of prevailing with sober Christians to foregoe their Faith and Perswasion that it is from the Love of Christ that Believers are preserved in that condition wherein he doth and will approve of them Yea to suppose that this is all the Grace of the Gospel that whilest me are good Christ loves them and when they are bad he hates them both which are true and farther that he doth by his Grace neither make them Good nor preserve them that are so made is to renounce all that is properly so called He yet proceeds first to evert this Love which I asserted and then to declare his own Apprehensions concerning the Love of Christ. The first in the ensuing words Pag. 210. But methinks this is a very odd way of arguing from the Divine Nature For if the Love of Christ as God be so Infinite Eternal Unchangeable Fruitfull I would willingly understand how Sin Death and Misery came into the World For if this Love be so Eternal and Unchangeable because the Divine Nature is so then it was alwayes so For God alwayes was what he is and that which is Eternal could never be other than it is now and why could not this Eternal and Unchangeable and Fruitfull Love as well preserve us from falling into Sin and Misery and Death as love Life and Holiness into us For it is a little odd first to love us into Sin and Death that then he may love us into Life and Holiness which indeed could not be if this Love of God were alwayes
as well proved And because this is a Matter of great consequence I shall first examine those Reasons the Doctor alleadges to prove that Christ fulfilled all Righteousness as he was Mediator in their stead whose Mediator he was These Assertions are gathered up from several places in my Discourse though pag. 182. is cited for them all And if any one find himself concerned in these things I may demand of him the Labour of their perusal in my Book it self and for those who shall refuse a Complyance with so reasonable a Request I do not esteem my self obliged to tender them any farther satisfaction However I say again that the Lord Christ fulfilled all Righteousness as Mediator and that what he did as Mediator he did it for them whose Mediator he was or in whose stead and for whose Good he executed the Office of a Mediator before God He sayes it is well said if it were as well proved I say it is all proved in the Places where it is asserted and that with such Testimonies and Arguments as he dares not touch upon And although he pretends to examine the Reasons that I alleadge to prove that Christ fulfilled all Righteousness as he was Mediator in their stead whose Mediator he was yet indeed he doth not do so For First I say no such thing as he here feigns me to say namely that Christ as Mediator fulfilled all Righteousness in our stead but only that Christ being the Mediator in our stead fulfilled all Righteousness for us which is another thing though perhaps he understands not the difference Nor doth he so much as take notice of that Testimony which is immediately subjoyned unto the words he cites in the Confirmation of them But he will disprove this Assertion or at least manifest that it cannot be proved And this he enters upon pag 297. As for the first we have some Reason to require good proof of this since the Notion of a Mediator includes no such thing A Mediator is one who interposeth between two differing Partyes to accommodate the Difference but it was never heard of yet that it was the Office of a Mediator to perform the Terms and Conditions himself Moses was the Mediator of the first Covenant Gal. 3.9 And his Office was to receive the Law from God to deliver it to the People to command them to observe those Rights and Sacrifices and Expiations which God had ordained but he was not to fulfill the Righteousness of the Law for the whole Congregation Thus Christ is now the Mediator of a better Covenant and his Office required that he should preach the Gospel which contains the Terms of Peace and Reconciliation between God and Men and since God would not enter into Covenant with Sinners without the Intervention of a Sacrifice he dyes too as a Sacrifice and Propitiation for the sins of the World I yet suppose that he observed not the Inconsistencies of this Discourse and therefore shall a little mind him of them although I am no way concerned in it or them For First he tells us That a Mediator is one who interposeth between two differing Parties to accommodate the Difference and then gives us an Instance in Moses who is called a Mediator in receiving the Law but did therein no way interpose himself between differing Parties to reconcile them Secondly from the Nature of the Mediation of Moses he would describe the Nature of the Mediation of Christ which Socinian Fiction I could direct him to a sufficient Confutation of but that Thirdly He rejects it himself in his next words that Christ as a Mediator was to dye as a Sacrifice and Propitiation for the Sins of the World which renders his Mediation utterly of another Kind and Nature than that of Moses The mistake of this Discourse is that he supposeth that men do argue from the general Nature of the Office of a Mediator and the Work of Mediation in this Matter when that which they do intend hence to prove and what he intends to oppose is from the special Nature of the Mediatory Office and Work of Christ which is peculiar and hath sundry things essentially belonging unto it that belong not unto any other kind of Mediation whatever whereof himself gives one signal Instance In his ensuing pages he wonderfully perplexeth himself in gathering up sayings backward and forward in my discourse to make some advantage to his purpose and hopes that he is arrived at no less success than a discovery of I know not what Contradictions in what I have asserted As I said before so I say again that I refer the determination and judgement of this whole matter unto any one who will but once read over the discourse excepted against But for his part I greatly pity him as really supposing him at a loss in the sense of what is yet plainly delivered And I had rather continue to think so than to be relieved by supposing him guilty of such gross prevarications as he must be if he understands what he treats about Plainly I have shewed that there was an especial Law of Mediation which Christ was subject unto as the Commandment of the Father That he should be incarnate that he should be the King Priest and Prophet of his Church that he should bear our Iniquities make his Soul an offering for sin and give his life a ransom for many were the principal parts of this Law The whole of it I have lately explained in my Exercitations unto the second part of the Exposition on the Epistle to the Hebrews whereon if he please he may exercise and try his Skill in a way of opposition This Law our Lord Jesus Christ did not yield obedience to in our stead as though we had been obliged originally unto the duties of it which we neither were nor could be although what he suffered penally in any of them was in our stead without which consideration he could not have righteously suffered in any kind And the following trivial Exception of this Author about the Obligation on us to lay down our Lives for the Bretheren is meet for him to put in seeing we are not obliged so to dye for any one as Christ dyed for us Was Paul crucifyed for you But secondly Christ our Mediator and as Mediator was obliged unto all that obedience unto the Moral and all other Laws of God that the Church was obliged unto and that which I have asserted hereon is that the Effects of the former obedience of Christ are communicated unto us but the latter obedience it self is imputed unto us and have proved it by those Arguments which this Man does not touch upon All this is more fully clearly and plainly declared in the discourse it self and I have only represented so much of it here again that it might be evident unto all how frivolous are his Exceptions It is therefore to no purpose for me to transcribe again the Quotations out of my Book which he filleth up his