never have laid any great weight upon that place Gal. 5.4 Ye are fallen from Grace for in the third ch v. 26. he saith ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus Such warnings and exhortations are usefull to all for as the secure are awakened and the unsound may hereby be made better than they are so are true beleevers held in that state which they have attained By fear of falling away they are preserved from falling away Care and watchfulness are spiritual graces of God whereby they continue stedfast When many of Christs disciples being offended left him their departure endangered the rest the twelve therefore he kept by him by asking them thus will ye also go away As for such impossibilitie of falling away as you speak of I know not any That which certainly shall not in the event come to pass may yet be possible in it self to come to pass For the Saints considered in themselves to fall away is a thing possible yea very probable such is their weakness such is their danger But upon supposition of Gods Decree and promise and preservation it is impossible that it should be They are as frail as glasses but they are held by a warie hand God will not suffer them to be tempted above their strength but knoweth how to deliver them out of temptation He will not suffer the rod of the wicked to rest to abide long upon the lot of the righteous lest the righteous put forth their hands to wickedness He shortens the days of trouble that the Elect be not born down nor sink under the burden And sometimes speedily takes them away lest malice should alter their understanding or deceit beguile their soul To prove that there is a difference betwixt true beleevers and Apostates besore their fall I alledged several places to which you have answered severally and largely But you have said nothing that hath made any of those testimonies to that purpose invalid The two first did shew not onely that there is a difference but that the ground of that difference is in Gods secret counsel To those two I shall onely add now some other the like and then conclude this chapter Joh. 17.12 None of them is lost but the son of perdition And what that signifies you cannot better understand than by conferring with a parallel place of the same subject namely Joh. 13.18 I speak not of you all I know whom I have chosen in each of these texts Judas is he that is excepted and in the one he is called the son of perdition in the other he is said not to be chosen and thence it was he fell away and was lost And that Election to life is spoken of there and not to Office is certain and evident for Judas was chosen to be an Apostle When the Jews in so great a part fell off from the true Church it was a very great offence How doth the Apostle remove it Rom. 11.7 Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for but the Election hath obtained it When some turned the Grace of God into wantonness S. Jude to prevent the scandal saith that such false teachers and their followers were not good at first and at best but such as crept in unawares and were before of old ordained to this condemnation And when the generalitie of the inhabitants of the earth did wonder after the Beast and worship him there is in serted a clause of difference betwixt them and others and that difference derived from the very fountain or foundation of God the Elect are excepted Revel 13.8 All whose names are not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world CHAP. XXIX The will of God IF it please the Reader to peruse first mine and then yours and but compare them together I suppose he will not think it needfull that any thing more be written now about the title or subject of this chapter When we are speaking of the will of God you betake jrour self to the Free will of man bringing forth such fragments as have often been served up I shall onely take notice of some other things which you have fallen upon no way belonging hither For you are like a valiant Gamester and will have at all 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Joannes ad oppositum as you can hold up any thing that you have said you can oppose whatsoever another saith yea sometimes although it be your own opinion Sect. 2. But he says God is to be worshipped in spirit and truth now and not as before Christs coining in outward rites shadows and ceremonies which then bare a great part of Gods service I am glad M. H. is for such spiritual worship if it be in realitie for he may have it is likely a secret intention contrary to his revealed sayings as he signifies of God Soon after this about the beginning of your next Section you call it a Threed-bare distinction of A Revealed will and secret and like better of Conditional and Absolute I told you then you had often heard it and I like it the better for being common and ordinary You say little to it there and here you make a Jest upon it and a jest if it be a threed-bare one as this is is stark naught but if withall it be prophane and Lucianical it is the more abominable To understand and to make out the two-fold will of God manifestly delivered in holy Scripture it concerneth you as well as others and I think you cannot do it better than others have done For example Exod. 7.3 4. God commanded Pharaoh to let the people go at the very same time he hardened Pharaoh's heart that he might not let them go Yours of Conditionall and Absolute will not help the matter here unless you can tell what should be the condition in this case You that hold God willeth all men to be saved in your sense without any difference till they themselves make it not conferring one place of Scripture with another one principle of Faith with the rest must make two contrary wills or else deny whether directly or by consequence Gods omnipotence It being a most certain truth in Reason and in Religion gion that God doth whatsoever he will both in Heaven and in Earth But others say consonantly to other parts of Christian Divinity that Gods revealed will is not always properly a will but onely figuratively interpretatively or by way of likeness He is said to will because he seemeth to will in declaring what he willeth should be mans duty and what he will accept and approve of if performed Now because this is declared by the Law or Commandment therefore it is called his revealed will This is no way contrary to his will whereby he peremptorily determines what he himself will do and what shall inevitably come to pass which because he hath not discovered to us except matter of prophecy or promise is therefore called his secret will Or
to obtain life eternal by Jesus Christ our Redeemer In the fourth Section he that is loth to read over all your book may finde enough for a taste how to judge of your dealing I did say that the meaning of those words Ephes 1. He chose us in him was not that God chose Christ first and in choosing him chose us I proved it out of the words in the seventh verse and the like manner of speech there in whom we have redemption the forgiveness of sins I asked had Christ forgiveness first and we in him No. Now to have forgiveness is to be forgiven Mark 3.29 He that shall blaspheme against the holy Ghost hath never forgiveness Acts 10.43 Whosoever beleeveth in him shall receive remission of sins Redemption and forgiveness are here taken passively as they are taken actively so they may be said to be in Christ I might have said thus for so I meant Was Christ forgiven first and then we in him Was Christ redeemed first and we in him and then I had prevented that most absurd and impertinent vagarie of yours of partaking of a feast by coming into the house where it is with a great deal the like which when you wrote I wonder where your senses were wandring I call you back therefore if I may and I tell you We were forgiven and redeemed in Christ yet Christ was not forgiven and redeemed first So were we chosen in Christ and yet Christ was not chosen as we were chosen For the clearer understanding of this matter and of those words We were chosen in Christ it is needfull to distinguish The word Christ may be taken two ways First personally for the Son of God made man and suffering for us Secondly collectively as it signifies a mystical bodie whereof Christ is the Head a body congregated of Christ and all beleevers incorporate with him You take it in this latter sense as if we were chosen because we were united to him or after we were made one with him But I have shewed that it is to be taken in the former sense for the person of the Mediatour in whom that is by whom by whose bloud V. 7. we were ehosen to salvation or to be brought to life as he is taken not for a person but for a collective bodie so indeed not otherwise we may be said to be chosen into him but no way in him as you meâ—n You think If election of the Church do in nature or reason precede the choice of a Mediatour then we cannot be chosen in Christ because we are chosen before the confideration of him It is more irksome to speak to him that will not understand than to him that cannot Let me use a few words to your layman whosoever he was that had the good hap to espie this contradiction for this is likely to be that which you speak of in the twentieth chapter My friend you intend to build an house this is your end and purpose this you think of first next you think of hiring workmen and providing materials as means towards building the house and yet you cannot for the least moment of time think to build an house not having wherewithall without workmen and materials You intend to cross the haven this is your first purpose next you think of taking boat you think of one before the other and yet you think of them both together Likewise it is but one purpose desire or resolution of yours to make a voyage into France and to go a ship-board you intend these two both together yet in reason the first of these is first because you desire the other onely in order to that If neither you nor your friend can understand this you are more fit to meddle in other matters than in finding out contradictions Your Essay that names written in heaven should be the qualities of godly meek mercifull written ever in heaven but put upon men when they beleeve came out of Socinus's shop as I told you some where before though you have hammered it more then any other that I know of The names of beleevers are according to their frames and you quote Solomons Proverbs The wise in heart shall be called prudent I told you that qualities are not names Prudent is a qualitie so is righteous poor in spirit mercifull Here you answer somewhat nicely Prudence is the qualitie Prudent the name You shall not need to tell me of my new Logick I have enough left of my old to tell you that Prudence is a qualitie in the Abstract and Prudent is a qualitie no less in the Concrete so they are both qualities but neither of them any mans name But you as before you confounded qualities with names now confound Grammar with Logick as if those things which differ in the one must differ in the other also I can discern nothing further in this Chapter concerning which there is need of any notice to be taken or to be given I shall onely give you this my reason against this new Essay When we read that there are in heaven names written in a book it is borrowed from mens custome who are wont to set down in writing the names of certain persons in a book scrol or catalogue to the intent that their persons may be for sundry purposes the more certainly remembred in time to come So that though there be no book or writing with God yet is there somewhat like it and the thing it self is found among men But as for your kinde of book or writing a book full not of proper names but Adjectives or Qualities it is no where found that I can tell of neither know I where to look for it Therefore vnless you and yours can invent this you have invented nothing CHAP. XVII Jacob and Esau CHAP. XVIII Pharaoh I Dare trust any Reader with your xvii chapter throughout if his senses be but awake though they be not much exercised Onely I observe what encouragement you give him at the beginning while you explain your meaning of that in your Catechisme The Scripture says not that the Election of Jacob and the rejection of Esau were personal by personal evidently meaning as considered in their own persons without Christ for First you then explained your self in the very next answer thus Not personally but nationally therefore it is too bad tosay that you evidently meant any thing else than Nationally Secondly though something hath been said touching election personal and withall in Christ yet for Esau's rejection how that should be not personal but in Christ or not without him you should have helped your Reader in this who is not always of so quick invention as your self As for your xviii chapter I know nothing in it but may receive satisfaction either from what hath formerly been said or from what hereafter followeth CHAP. XIX Vessels of honour and dishonour Sect. 1. He saith I interpret a vessel of honour upon which any honour is conferred whereas I spake
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
abuses of Popery were to be reformed not onely the wel-minded laid to their hands but persons also worldly godless and enemies to Religion joyned with the rest in the destructive part but intended to promote Atheisme when they set themselves against Superstition Hereticks also whose opinions lay on that side were zealous in their manner but their zeal was more like Wild-fire which they threw in to have marred all if it might have been For after that Antiquity came to be a badge ot Popery then 1 whatsoever was found to have been practised by the Papists in Church-orders was for that reason rejected Not a stone must be taken from Babylon for a foundation or a corner If the least matter of all were yielded it was as a pepper-corn in acknowledgement of the Antichristian Government And 2 even the most sacred Articles of our Christian Faith have been denyed as having come from Rome and thither were to be returned So the name of Antichrist the Beast and the Dragon served the turne for many heresies for all profaneness A Discourse came forth entituled The storming of Antichrist a right proper and well chosen word of which they know the meaning who had experience of the Wars and laying siege to Towns and strong places and assaulting them storms of winde tempests of hail and of Lightning do spare nothing that is in their way having no regard shewing no mercy making no difference for being meer naturall Agents they always act according to their utmost power and might So describes the Poet his hardy Souldiers 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 not likening them to Wolves and Lions which have been known to relent and their mouths have been as it were stopped but they fought as it were a flame fell on like a tempest noting saith the great Scholiast 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that they were irrationally impetuous violent without sense or reason without mean or measure And much like these stormers were some of those that went among our Reformers both first and last You seem to extend Beast-worship very far even to those matters in question betwixt us But you give no instance nor shall I insist upon any I know you can if you will distinguish betwixt Poperie and the Christian Religion and if you do not consider apart what belongs to one and what belongs to the other what to Errour and what to Truth you may soon do that which tendeth to the weakening and undermining of the whole building Divers of the Papists have twitted us with the Jews laying to our charge Judaisme for refusing some Apocryphal books and for condemning Image worship as the Jews do now and for saying that a man cannot forgive sins as they also said and for insisting upon the Law of Moses and the precedents of the old Testament to prove that unto Christian Kings belongeth the supremacy in ordering matters of Religion in a Nation he that argueth thus say they is more like a Jew than a Christian The Anabaptists had learned this Lesson too for when they were bent upon such a confusion as should take away the difference betwixt Clergie and Laitie they were wont upon occasion to revile the Priests and Levites as blinde and ignorant 〈◊〉 demanding of John the Baptist by what authority he did what he did as if observation of order in the Church and pretence of Authoritie in Gods worship and service were points of Judaical blindness and infidelity Against all these and such like let us remember that the Jews were once the onely true Church of God and our Christianity came to us from them and through their hands we are all but proselytes to their Church So that as they had once all the Substantials of the true Religion both for belief and practice we cannot suppose but that they do retain many of them still In like manner the Christian Religion came to us through the Church of Rome not from the Church of Rome and our profession is but to remove the additions and superstructures of the Papists by which the right belief and worship have been corrupted and to throw out the earth with which the Philistims had filled the well and stopped the springs Antichrists are many there is false worship on both hands Anarchie is beastly doing as well as Tyrannie and Confusion as much as Usurpation I cannot but think some prejudice a-against my person I know not wherefore being so meer a stranger to him hath clouded his reason By this Clause he that will may judge of all your book as of the sack by a handfull for it is like the rest full of confidence but void of reason as if your Doctrine were so blameless that nothing could be spoken against it Perhaps against your person some may harbour prejudice but against what you teach and write no man unless his reason be overclouded can justly except You should have been well assured first that there was any such prejudice born against you before you took such thought and put your self to a loss in seeking what might be the cause of it For my part I am as much to seek what should be any the very least ground of such a vain surmise Some little while after the comming forth of this your Piece a friend of mine and of yours too who doth nor much give his mind to read Controversies nor was at that time much inclined out of his good nature to pitie my condition did ask me thus Who bade you begin And because this question is very consonant to your sense I will now give you the Answer to it And first if my charge which is that I began be in reference to those multitudes of right-believing Christians who have a long time been offended at your Doctrine My Defence is this that if any other whosoever had before endeavoured to hinder the spreading of your errours then as I could not have begun so I would not have followed There arose indeed some contest between the Reverend Doctor and your self about Vniversity-learning but for other Heterodoxies of yours no man so far as I know gave notice or publick warning I began therefore because none other would though very many much better might But I suppose the meaning of the question was not why I rather than another but why I would begin with you when as you gave me no provocation But I pray consider well they are the Schismaticks who though they abide give just occasion unto others for to depart He that denies the debt begins the sute and he that invades my right sends for the process Will you not give others leave to defend their own against you and and to continue in the things that they have learned and contend for the Faith once delivered to them which you with your Innovations and inventions have corrupted you began when you taught and promoted so many opinions contrary to what we have received when you wrought upon the people to draw them after you when at