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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A53932	Sound doctrine, or, The doctrine of the Gospel about the extent of the death of Christ being a reply to Mr. Paul Hobson's pretended answer to the author's Fourteen queries and ten absurdities : with a brief and methodicall compendium of the doctrine of the Holy Scriptures ... : also of election and reprobation ... : whereunto is added the fourteen queries and ten absurdities pretended to be answered by Mr. Paul Hobson, but are wholly omitted in his book.	W. P. (William Pedelsden); Hobson, Paul.	1657 (1657)	Wing P1046; ESTC R30088	45,061	64

your threefold distinction of Acts 1. The life or vertue of the Act 2. The fruit of the Act 3. The form of the Act Whether or no you do understand these or out of whose Book you ●ad them doth not concern me much to examine But this I am sure of That as 't is most ridiculously alleadged for this thing so your inference from it is false for you say by the help of your foolish distinction That Abraham was really a Father of many Nations when the promise was first propounded and Christ really slain when he was first promised which is most untrue and it doth destroy the life and vertue of the actual crucifixion of Christ and the life and power of our Gospel for our Christ crucified sixteen hundred and odd yeers ago is by your silly distinction made to be a thing of little or no value the life and vertue of it having been before you say and Election also done and made sure before time Oh impudence in a superlative degree I fear you are a man that loves novel that I say not frivolous distinctions why cannot you content your self with our ancient and known distinctions when they are good why cannot we say That Abraham was a Father of Nations and Christ was slain as soon as the promise was made in posse but not in esse or in a promise but not in performance and That persons are elected before the world was in purpose but yet with respect to their being in Christ and perseverance in good ways unto the end as hath been already declared more fully A second Objection 1 Pet. 1.2 Elect according to the fore-knowledge of God through sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience Vnto which is joyned 2 Thess. 2.13 which place saith That we are elected through or by the means of sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the Truth c. In your answering and opposing of this you do grant the thing you plead against for you say pagine 45. That Sanctification and belief of the Truth or Obedience is the way or means to accomplish that end unto which Election deth intend And unto this I agree That Faith and Obedience is the way and means unto the End that is eternal Life Let me therefore ask you whensoever means is appointed unto an end if the means be not used can the end be accomplished ●… if perseverance in holiness be the way and means unto life that without it no man can attain thereto what doth your unconditional that I say not nonsensical Election avail or amount to So that I may say with Esdras 2 Esdras 7.5 6 7. A city being built and set upon a broad field full of all good things and the entrance to it narrow and very dangerous c. If saith 〈◊〉 now this city were given to a man for an inheritance if he never pass the danger set before it how shall he receive this inheritance Read also unto the 26 verse of that Chapter If against this some captious Critick should say This is not canonical Scripture I answer I do not say 't is onely then let it pass as the sayings of good Men for its greatest opposers do confess That the Books called Apocrypha are to be preferred before any other humane writings whatsoever yet truely I must say I do not yet see the Reason why they are rejected since that the Ancients have had them in equal esteem with other Scriptures and in the old English Bible the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah being called by the same name as if one man had wrote them all four But this by the by The third Objection No men can be elected in Christ till they be in Christ but no men are in Christ till they believe or trust in Christ For the elect Ephesians were once out of Christ Eph. 2.11 12. Your Answer to this is Men are said to be truely and really in Christ two wayes but you do not tell where 't is said so unless in your Book First by Election and so we are all you say in Christ What! hath the man forgot himself are all in Christ by Election I do not know where to finde you even now you were for Election of a few and now you say pag 47. By Election we are all in Christ he being the publick person in whom all elections were comprehended and then in the next word you seem to be against it again for there you say All the Elect are really in him before they are brought forth Unto all which I shall make no Reply there being in your words nothing of sense at all But in the 48 page you say You agree with us That men before they are called are without God without hope and by nature the children of wrath as well as others Eph. 2.3 and yet for all this you say They were in Christ by election before O wonder of wonders what a man really in Christ and yet at the same time a childe of wrath yea as much a childe of wrath as others too for so saith the Text To countenance this you say Christ would not else have said Joh. 10.16 Other sheep I have which are not of this fold them will I bring in But what is this to your purpose All this doth not prove nor will you nor any other man be able unto the dayes of eternity to prove that these or any others are really Sheep or elect ones before conversion though in Scripture fore-called so for the Scripture fore-seeing their Faith and Obedience which they will have towards God doth fore-tell also of their election and good acceptance with God at that day and that is as much as can reasonably be inferred from thence But you say There is also an outward being in Christ that men may be in and fall according to these Scriptures Joh. 15.2 6. 1 Joh. 2.10 1 Tim. 1.19.20 But you will not speak to that you say if you will not I purpose to speak to it in due time and shall make it appear That there may be a falling from true Grace and from Christ after true ingrafting into him and that falling away you mention John 15. is so too for Christ there speaks to his own Disciples who you will confess were truely in Christ yet if they did not abide in him should be cast forth as a branch and withered and burnt c. In the next place you say We have some other Objections about trusting in Christ and believing in Christ But you say You have said enough to it already I think so too and too much unless 't were truer Next you come to the sixth thing i. e. That the publishing of the forementioned priviledges of the Gospel is God's way or means to produce Faith and other Gospel-Obedience in the hearts of his own But in this there is you say little difference between you and I. I think so too unless herein you say 'T is God's way to produce Faith in his

more then you can do meaning with a good conscience Like this Saint Paul hath a saying in 2 Cor. 13.8 We can do nothing against the truth but for the truth But for further satisfaction to my ingenuous Reader I refer him to that famous and worthy work of Mr. John Goodwin of London intituled Redemption Redeemed in which not onely these Scriptures but also all others that are usually brought against the points now in controversie are most amply handled and the truth evinced beyond all exception CHAP. IX Concerning Foreknowledge in God THere be many that by fore-knowledge will needs understand approbation and love rather then knowledge properly taken but that cannot be because then the Apostle Paul and Peters difference between fore-knowledge and to predestinate to fore-know and to Elect would be quite taken away But if any should contend to have it so notwithstanding I will fetch a poor Almanack to wipe away this gloss by the common use of the word Prognostication Therefore though God approveth not yet he fore-sees all things or rather sees them as present to him Which fore-knowledge or knowledge doth not lay a necessity upon the things so to be for the very nature of knowledge doth not imply a necessity that the thing must but a certainty that it will be as for example When I see a man walk and at the same time see the sun shine I see the first as voluntary and the second as natural and though at the instant that I see both done there is a necessity that they be done or else I could not see them when I do yet before they were done there was a necessity but of onely one i.e. the sun shining but none at all of the other i. e. of the mans walking the sun could not but shine being a natural agent the man might not have walked being a voluntary one upon which it followes There is a twofold necessity one absolute the other on supposition the absolute is that by which a thing moves when 't is forced the Suppositive is that by which a man shall be damned if he die impenitent the latter of these though not the first doth mighty well consist with the liberty of mans will and Gods conditional decrees I am now writing and God foresaw that I am writing yet it followes not that I must needs write for I can chuse What God fore-sees will be will certainly come to passe but it will come to pass so as he foresaw it that is I will do it of choise If all things are present to God as indeed they are his foresight must needs be all one with our sight As therefore when I see a man dance as he pleases it is necessary that he doth what I see he doth but yet my looking on doth not make it necessary for that a thing may be certain in respect of its event and yet not necessary in respect of its cause is no news at all to a considering person who will but duly distinguish Gods Omniscience from his Omnipotence They that make the fore-knowledge of God to be the cause of all future events must needs father all the wickedness in the world upon him for he fore-knowes the evil as well as the good he fore-knew that Adam would fall that the Jews would crucifie Christ that Judas would betray him with all other wickedness in other men but his fore-knowledge did not cause them to do it for they were voluntary agents or else could not be said wickedly to have done what they did do Queries on the universal love of God to all mankinde 1. IF Christ died not for all what ground hath any man to believe he dyed for him 2. How can God be said to be just in case he condemns those persons for whom Christ never died 3. How can remission of sins be preached to those for whom Christ never died 4. Whether do men perish because Christ died not or because they believed not if because Christ died not it is not their unbelief which destroyes them but they perish because Christ never died for them or because there is no Christ for them to believe in 5. If Christ did not die for all wherefore do they exhort all to repentance and call upon all men to believe or would you make some men believe and so be saved which Christ never died for 6. Whether hath not Christ given out a power or ability to all men to believe on him 7. Whether the fault be in Christ or in the Creature that the Creature is not saved if the fault be not in Christ that the Creature is not saved then whether hath not Christ given out a power or ability to believe 8. Whether unbelief be the condemning sin if unbelief be the condemning sin and sinners be condemned for not believing which never had a power to believe where then is the fault 9. whether God hath not appointed all to be saved with this proviso or condition if they believe 10. Whether was not Adam in a state of grace before his fall which if so whether did not Adam fall from grace and we in him 11. What is the state of infants by generation from Adam whether are they in a state of salvation or in a state of damnation 12. If infants are in a state of salvation whether do they fall from that state when they come to act 13. If the elect can never fall from their election by disobeying the Scripture no more then the reprobate can be saved by obeying them to what purpose is the Scripture set forth 14. Whose names they are that are written in the book of life whether be they the Elect's or the reprobate's if the elect's whether they shall not be blotted out if they adde or diminish from the word of God These Absurdities will unavoydably fall on those which deny Christs death for all 1. IF Christ died but for some of the sons of men then the divel destroyes not those men for whom Christ died not but they perish for want of Christ and should so perish if there were no devil to devour them contrary to this Scripture 1 Pet. 1.8 2. If Christ died not for all men then despaire is no sin in them who perish through it seeing there is nothing for them to believe in unto salvation for whom Christ died not 3. If Christ died not for all men then I think it were a sin for some men to believe he died for them because they should believe a lie if they should believe that Christ dyed for them seeing he did not if they speak true which say he died not for all 4. If there were some persons for whom Christ died not such persons should be exempted or freed from the condemnation of unbelief or treading underfoot the blood of the Covenant by which they were sanctified if it were true that Christ had not once died for them for how can that man crucifie Christ afresh or tread underfoot the blood by which he was sanctified for whom no Christ died or no blood was shed if they say true that say Christ died not for all 5. If Christ died not for all Satan in perswading people that Christ died not for them doth not evil if that be true that Christ died not for them and therein he were no deceiver but rather perswades them to that which is truth if Christ died not for all as they say 6. If Christ died not for all men then it were no heresie for to teach some men to deny that Christ bought them contrary to that Scripture 2 Pet. 2.1 who said Some men bring in damnable heresies even denying the Lord that bought them bringing on themselves swift destruction But it is impossible for him who Christ died not for to deny the Lord that bought him or to be a heretick in so doing if Christ bought him not 7. If there be some whom Christ died not for it is an error for them to believe that Christ died for them which say they he died not for 8. If Christ died not for all men then some men for whom Christ died not do believe a truth in believing that Christ died not for them which were a blasphemy to say 9. If Christ died not for all men then some men shall be damned in hell for not believing that which is not truth because some men shall be damned in hell for not believing that Christ dyed for them yet some say that it is not truth that Christ died for them and so shall be damned in hell for not believing a lie 10. If Christ died not for all men then their damnation is not to be ascribed to their not believing but to Christ not dying for them which is contrary to these Scriptures Joh. 3.18 36. FINIS * Men-slayers * Fore-sight of Faith