though the ill digesting and composing of them will not deserve a Schollars eye much less answer yet because if it be possible that the Authour may not further befool himself or further delude his over credulous proselytes and lead captive 2 Tim. 3.6 silly women laden with sin I will draw a line of confutation over his more remarkable Errors and willingly pass by his smaller faults of incongruous or improper expressions First I do consent that the most holy and high God from all not in Eternity by one sole and single act did see all whatsoever he purposed to do or permitted to be done by any of the creatures he intended to create for else he could not be Omniscient Omnipresent Infinite and Eternal But whereas it is said That God saw some men embracing the means of salvation and those he elected in Christ from the foundation of the world to everlasting life this is so far from soundness that it is flat Pelagianism an old Heresie exploded forth of the Church for many ages since by which it must be concluded that the eternal decree of Gods unchangeable election must be dependent on the intervention of mans liberty of willing and working but no proof from Scripture brought to evidence it nor appearance of any colour of reason Whereas the Scripture when it speaks of election makes it to be altogether independent on the creature or from ought at all wrought by or in the creature but wholly resting for the ground thereof in the bosome and holy will of God himself and therefore it is called Ephes 1.5 the good pleasure of his will and Ephes 1.11 the purpose and counsel of his will Nay so absolute and irrelative is this decree of election from any thing out of God besides his good pleasure as to be any motive or incentive for which God elects as a meritorius or a procuring ground or cause of it that even Christ himself is excluded as for whose merit man should be elected and therefore we are said to be elected in Christ not for Christ But because Socratical discourses are not so convincing I shall produce some irrefragable Arguments to which if the adverse party shall give any the least colour of answer to satisfaction then I shall say as they believe that learning is good for nothing but to puffe men up and gull the world but till that be done which I am certain will never be I shall bless the God of my salvation who Ephes 4.8 11. hath given such gifts unto men 1. Arg. If the rise of our election be grounded in the free grace of God then it is not upon Gods foresight of mans embracing of the means of salvation but it is founded on the meer mercy and free grace of God therefore not upon the foresight of the embracing of the means The first proposition or major is unquestionable for that there is but one cause to produce the effect The second proposition or minor viz. that our election is founded on the meer mercy and free grace of God see for proof hereof Deut. 7.7 8. The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself the Lord did not set his love upon or choose you because you were more in number c. but because the Lord loved you where the single love of God is pitcht upon as the cause of their election exclusively from any other outward causes See further Deut. 10.15 Matth. 20.15.21 Luk. 12.22 Rom. 9.11 18 21. Ephes 1.5 11. 2 Tim. 1.9 2. Arg. If the Patriarch Iacob was elected meerly out of grace without any respect had to any of his faith works or use of means then all others are likewise so elected for there is the one alike motive for the election of all as of one But Iacob was elected meerly out of the good will of God without any respect to faith works or the use of means at least for the moving of God to elect him Therefore all others are so likewise elected The minor proposition is confirmed out of Rom. 9.11 for the children being not yet born neither having done any good or evil that the purpose of God according to election might stand not of works but of him that calleth It was said the elder shall serve the younger 3. Arg. If the decree of election be absolute without any respect had to faith works or means Then God did not elect upon a foresight of the embracing of the means but the decree of election is absolute c. Therefore See for proof Rom. 9.11 Rom. 11.5 6 7. Ephes 1.4 5 11. Matth. 20.16 and 22.14 4. Arg. If faith and works be the fruits and effects of election then they are no wayes causes of it for which God should elect but they are fruits and effects Acts 13.48 as many as were ordained unto life believed Ephes 2.4 7 8 9 13. 5. Arg. If our foreseen faith works or embracing of the means were the cause of our election they should be likewise the cause of our vocation and justification but the later is false therefore the first The major is proved by that undeniable axiome Quicquid est causa causae est causa etiam causati That which is the cause of a cause is also a cause of the thing caused i. e. of the effect The minor is proved 2 Tim. 1.9 and Ephes 2.8 Rom. 3.24 justified freely by his grace 6. Arg. If our election were dependent on mans embracing of the means then these absurdities would follow 1. Then the will of God should be moved and determined by an external cause i. e. the first cause should be ordered and guided by the second and thereby the first is made the second cause and e contra which is against the rules of all Philosophy and Divinity 2. God hereby is supposed to be capable of passion i.e. when thus moved but God is altogether immutable and impassible 3. Then there should be somewhat in the creature out of God before greater and better then God because that every cause is before and better then the effect 4. If there might be imagined to be any thing in the creature which might move God to the decreeing or appointing of this or that then it would follow that the actings or issues of things have not a dependence upon the decree of God contrary to Iam. 3.37 5. Then man might have just cause of boasting in himself 6. What then would become of children dying in infancy before they had the use of faith or works or any embracing of the means and which never were to have a being to act therefore they were never to be foreseen For the third Position That God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief those he reprobated to everlasting destruction But this hath the like unsoundness in it as the former of election there being no other ground or reason assigned for it either of sin or unbelief or rejecting of the means
every man in the world In this likewise the novice leads me in a mist for if his meaning be that the death of Christ and the shedding of his bloud is sufficient for every man in the world but effectuall onely to those to whom it is intended then I joyn with him but if he be otherwise minded then the close of that Position trips up the heels of the former part But I could have heartily wisht that this Seraphical Doctor had not so magisterially dogmatized and after an Apostolical manner sat in his Cathedral Chair by delivering his dictates like an ipse dixit I say unto you but rathet that he had endeavoured to have proved out of the sacred Scriptures what he hath so crudely ventilated so might we better have tryed the spirits whether they be of God or no 1 Ioh. 4.1 Truly I do profess by what I find in these positions I cannot discern of what sect he is for by what he writes he is neither pure Pelagian Papist Arminian Socinian nor Anabaptist but a hotch-porch of them all jumbled together And that as it is written of Mahomet at the first he framed his Alchoran by the advice of Sergius the Monk a renagado partly of the Jews partly of the Christians and partly of the Gentiles opinions so hath this Evangelist composed his doctrinals So that in this we may see what fruits may be expected at Cockolds-pit and all such places of such illiterate and confused assemblies ex ungue leonâ—m ex pede Herculem If the blind lead the blind both must fall together into the ditch Matth. 15.14 But so it was in the Apostles time there arose such amongst them who desiring to be teachers 1 Tim. 1.7 understood not what they said themselves nor wherof they affirmed yea this was foreprophesied 2 Pet 2.1 that false teachers should arise up amongst them who should bring in damnable heresies but never so fully accomplisht as in these our dayes wherein many unheard of formerly and blasphemous opinions are daily ventituted under some specious appearances of truth and holiness The God of love and truth lead us into all truth So prayeth he that is the less then the least of all Saints James Rawson Short heads of the subsequent discourse THe title of the Pamphlet examined Page 1 2 The Preface examined 4 Toleration rightly stated 5 Magistrates power to interpose in matters of Religion 6 Bishops vindicated 7 Matth. 23.29 30. interpreted 8 Whether the doctrine of the Anabaptists be tolerable 9 Who are inconstant in their profession 11 2 Cor. 10.4 5. Examined 12 Eph. 6.11 12. Examined 13 Universal redemption offered to consideration 14 Isa 53.4 5 6. Interpreted 15 16 Psal 145.8 9. Cleared 17 Joh. 3.16 17. Opened 18 Rom. 5.18 19 2 Cor. 5.14 15. Interpreted 20 1 Tim. 2.1 2. Discussed 21 Tit. 2.11 Examined 22 Heb. 2.9 and 1 Pet. 3.9 Opened 23 Baptisme of Infants confirmed 24 c. Whether the Anabaptists be fixt to their principles page 27 Or at unity among themselves 28 Thom. Tazwells first position questioned 29 Whether the second position be not Pelagianisme 30 Ambiguity in the stating of the position 31 Psal 4.3 Explained 31 Who they be that are elected 32 Psal 37.9 c. Opened 34 Pro. 3.33 and Mar. 16.16 Discussed 34 Of the decrees of God 35 Of Gods foreknowledge and predestination 36 Of election 38 Of reprobation 39 My first Argument confirmed 40 Gods foreknowledge Independent 41 The pamphleter plowes with another mans heyfer page 42. As God decrees the end so likewise he decrees the means 43 Election to be distinguished from justification 44 Arminians make faith a foreseen cause of election page 45 c. Deut. 7.7 8. Expounded 48 Faith no foreseen cause of election 50 What place faith hath in justification 52 Rom. 9.1 c. ad ver 19. Analysed and interpreted page 53 c. The laws impotency to satisfie 57 What efficacy faith hath in justification 58 How God a respecter of persons to be understood 59 Absolute justification flows from Absolute election 60 Faith as much as works excluded from election 61 Gods alone will the cause of cause of election 62 Grace flows from the decree of election 63 Acts 13.48 Vindicated 64 c. Absurdities following foreseen faith in election 68 Other absurdities following that doctrine 69 What God did foresee in election 71 Marks of election no causes of election 72 Instrumental causes of salvation no causes of election 73 As God decreed the end so he decreed the means 74 Joh. 16.27 Explained 75 Of reprobation 76 Eph. 1.5 Discussed 77 Of the decree of election 78 Isa 45.9 Opened 79 No contradiction in what I do assert 80 What place Gods foresight in election and reprobation 81 God as he decrees the end so he decrees the means 82 The pamphleter begs the question 83 A twofold reprobation one before all time another in time 84 The pamphleter interferes with his own positions 85 Could Reprobates truly believe they might be saved 86 Reprobation includes both a denyal of the end and means of salvation 86 God the immediate worker of all spiritual graces 87 Sin foreseen not the cause of Reprobation 89 Sin the efflux not the effect of reprobation 90 Sin the consequent of reprobation 91 Our doctrine intrenches not on the divine attributes 92 Reprobation inforceth not to sin 93 A threefold necessity 94 Reprobation as by us stated not against the mercy of God 95 Nor against the truth of God 96 Ezek. 18.23 32. and 33.11 Explained 97 Absolute reprobation and exhortation to repentance argue no Hypocrisie in God 99 Absolute non election not against the wisdome of God 100 Isa 5.1 2 3 4 5 6 7. Interpreted 101 God may expect the performance of our duty though we cannot do it 103 Matth. 11.25 26. Vindicated 104 What God doth in time he decreed to do before all time 105 What power we have to do good we have from God the redeemer 106 Those whom God decrees to save he decrees to save them by faith 108 Sin the cause of positive reprobation viz. of damnation 109 1 Pet. 2.8 Vindicated 111 c. Rom. 9.19 c. Analysed and interpreted 116 c. Thom. Tazwells uses upon the doctrine of reprobation 124 What use the Saints may make thereof 125 Though there be no external yet there is an internal cause of reprobation viz. the will of God 128 Arminian positions very aequivocal 129 Rom. 11.33 44. Vindicated 139 Mille narianism not inconsistent with the Articles of faith 132 Absurdities cleaving to Tho. Tazwells positions 132 Whether sin foreseen be the cause of reprobation 133 c. Whether Infants may have faith though not the use of faith 135 c. Whether any Infant can be damned 137 Infants elected or reprobated as well as others 138 c. Hope onely of such Infants as are within the covenant 140 The Spirit of God and not the word that doth regenerate 141 Rom. 4.15 and 5.13 Opened
to tender unto fallen mankind by his son Jesus Christ and did not look at any thing that was in the creature or should be acted by the creature as any motive by which he was drawn thereunto but the moving cause was the fountain of everlasting love that was in himself towards his poor perishing creature freely to enter into an engagement by purpose and decree and from that purpose and decree to make forth promises in the Scripture that are 1 Cor. 1.20 yea and Amen in Christ Jesus to the glory of God by us that all sort or kind of people that do embrace the means of salvation to wit the free tenders of grace in the Gospel and continue in the faith and way of Jesus with a single heart and humble mind to the end of their lives Matt. 24.13 shall undoubtedly be saved and God can as soon cease to be as that he should fail in making good these promises to that sort or kind of people aforesaid because they flow from his purpose and decree which is unchangeable like unto himself as I shall by the assistance of God hereafter make appear in the following discourse Answ Here I will intreat the intelligent Reader considerately to take notice how this merchant of rags endeavours to juggle with me and by acting the Gypsies part to play fast and loose with my first Argument for howsoever it is by me affirmed that Gods election is absolute in it self irrespectrive and irrelative as to the end viz. salvation to which there was no motive or incentive whether of faith foreseen or embracing of the means or continuing therein or any thing else yet withal as before hinted I do maintain that the same God that determined of the end did likewise decree unto such persons so elected fit and suitable means conducing to that end viz. that he would send his Son to become a propitiation for them that he would effectually call them by his Gospel that he would give them faith to answer that call by believing that he would justifie their persons and sanctifie their natures and keep them by his power through faith unto salvation And whereas he writes although mans believing and obeying the Gospel be not a motive incentive or procuring ground or cause for which God elects c. who would not think here but that this man meant plainely and honestly but tuta frequensque via est sub amici fallere nomen for mark what followes but it hath been the good will and pleasue of God to engage himself by purpose and decree to elect justifie and save all those men and women that did or should in time embrace the means of salvation Answ Here is his warping for see how he fumbles together the decree it self of salvation with the means for the execution of that decree no waies distinguishing but confounding election with justification and embracing of the means It is very true and it is a Gospel-declaration that God will save all those that he doth justifie and who do embrace the means in sincerity and truth Rom. 8.29 Eph. 6.24 But if he prove out of any part of the Bible from Genesis to the Revelation that God will elect all those that do or shall embrace the means of salvation I will give him the cause and cry peccavi and it is to be marked that we are about the point of election and not of justification and therefore all such proofs that speak onely of justification and not specifically of election are alien to the point For all the rest of his words if the grant may gratify him I will freely give him viz. that all sorts of people that do embrace the means to wit the free tenders of grace in the Gospel shall undoubtedly be saved But what 's this to the Argument of Election You further add But if by these words Then it is not upon Gods foresight of mens embracing the means but onely that the embracing of the means is not a motive or moving cause for which God elects then his Argument is true in every part of it but I have some cause to except against the sequel of his major proposition viz. then it is not upon Gods foresight of mens embracing the means not so much in respect of any untruth I find in it if his meaning be as aforesaid but the exception that I make against it is in respect of the terms of it because it varieth from the position not answering the expressions of it for the position doth not say that God elected men upon the foresight of their embracing the means but the substance that is in it is that God saw some men embracing the means those he elected and therefore if it had answered to it it should have spoken thus Then God hath not elected those men which he saw embracing the means of salvation and then it had been so palpably false that it must needs have been denied without any further trouble but as it is it may be a truth and yet proves nothing in the position to be false Sir what need all these frothy words to wast time and to spoile clean paper you know my sense is that the embracing of the means is not a motive or moving cause for which God doth elect and howsoever it is that you are ashamed to outface so much clear light of the Scripture which confirms this truth but that your pretence is that you except against my Argument in respect of the terms of it because as you say it varieth from the Position not answering the expressions of it The substance whereof is this that God saw some men embracing the means those he elected Therefore now I must deal plainly roundly with you and shall unkennel you our of yout fox-holes You know the Water-men on the Thames when they cry Westward Hoe they have their faces Eastward So whiles you here pretend against motives incentives or procuring causes of election yet in very deed and truth you are most mainly for them as I shall God assisting me make plainly to appear Sir possible it is that you may not dive into the bottom of this mystery of Iniquity nor foresee at such a distance as you are into the depth of this design and therefore may with the more confidence protest against and utterly disclaim all motives incentives or procuring grouds or causes why God elects any but ascribe all to the good pleasure of his will as in words you seem to assert But if we cast a reflexe eye upon this Heresie I mean for eternal causes of election as it was at first hatched by Pelagius though shortly after it was crushed by a Councel and next again revived in part by the Semipelagian Papists and at last refined and put into a new garbe by those Interpolators your correspondents the Arminians it will be very visible to all considerate men that howsoever in words you deny any moving cause in respect of election yet so long as
it will sound forth good sense that the Gentiles were addicted to eternal life and believed Answ Here you conjure me into a circle and by expressions more potent then any charm charge me that as I am willing to answer c. Sir I shall answer you not as by virtue of your spell but as setting the fear of God before mine eyes when first I alledged that place for a proof to what I did intend it and sure it is no wayes enervated but rather gathered strength by your opposition The word I readily acknowledge used Acts 13.48 comes from the same primitive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which in its proper and primitive signification is to ordain constitute appoint determine and whereas you say that in 1 Cor. 16.15 t is translated addicted I confess t is true but under submission I conceive they so render it rather as Interpreters Expositors then Translators when as withall they kept the sense and scope of the holy Ghost and that they foresaw no great controversie or article of faith did depend upon it But when once Soeinus lib. 4. de servat cap. 13. not able otherwise to resist the power of the Spirit speaking in that text had found a starting-hole by rendring of it dispositos praeparatos proclives sive bene affectos the whole croud of Aâ—minians treading in his steps pervert the genuine interpretation of that word and speak in his language whose apes the Anabaptists are But if we take a view of that place and there behold the mind of the holy Ghost it cannot properly be rendred otherwise then according to the native sense of that word viz. ordained And then why should such a shrimp as you incline to the false gloss of a forreiner an Heretick and wave the common received translation of those reverend Orthodox Divines our own countrey-men but onely out of an affectation of singularity I know you l ' say as before of the pragmatick Pelagius comparing him with blessed Calvin why may not Socinus be in the right and our Translators in the wrong and therefore to certifie your judgement I shall make the contrary to appear by these convincing Arguments 1. This signification which I assert is most frequent with this Evangelist see Acts 15.2 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They determined that Paul should go up and Acts 28.23 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when they had appointed him a day so Rom. 13.1 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the powers that be are ordained of God and therefore why not so here 2. T is most consonant with the text it self where the ordination there spoken of intimates a relation to the end and not a disposition of the subject 3. Hereby the scope of the Evangelist is best preserved who speaking here of divers of the Jews and Gentiles proselytes ouâ— of curiosity coming to hear Paul preach he shews that whiles the Jews contradicted and blasphemed divers of the Gentiles were brought to believe in Christ but some did not now to any who should demand why the rest of the Gentiles should not likewise be converted the reason is implyed in the text that onely some of them were ordained unto life i. e. elected the rest were not as many as were ordained unto eternal life believed Wherein is a plain Antithesis not onely of the persons ver 45 48. viz. of the Jews contradicting and blaspheming and of the Gentiles being glad and glorifying the word of the Lord but also of the first cause according to Gods ordination viz. that some were ordained to life others were not 4. To render it addicted or disposed is gross Pelagianisme As many as were ordained i. e addicted prepared or disposed to eternal life for the same preparation either it must be of our selves or of God 2 Cor. 3.5 1 Cor. 4.7 1 Cor. 2.14 If you say it is of our selves that contradicts the evidence of such places as teach that we are not sufficient to think any thing as of our selves and who made thee to differ neither can any unregenerate man have any disposition to faith before he actually believe If you say it is of God then we have what we desire that God alone prepares disposes and ordains us unto life 5. The Evangelist useth not a participle active as thus as many as ordained themselves to eternal life believed but a participle passive as many as were ordained believed and therefore it speaks not of any action whereby they had disposed themselves but as they were ordained of God 6. There is no good consequence from that place of 1 Cor. 16.15 the house of Stephanus have ordained themselves or addicted themselves to the Ministery therefore it is in the power of an unbeliever to dispose himself to faith or eternal life for there is one way of those which are believers in disposing themselves to the ministery of the Church and another of those which as yet do not believe in respect of their disposition to faith and life eternal And thus Sir howsoever hand over head you have by tradition swallowed down the feculent dreggs of Socinus his interpretation yet it is too palpable that Glossa corrumpit textum and that it sounds plain non-sense that the Gentiles were addicted to eternal life before they believed And thus having thrown you out of your triumphing Charet wherein you marched so furiously against my fourth Argument I have leisure to attend to what you shall say against my fifth Argument which is this If our foreseen faith works or embracing of the means of salvation were the cause of our election they should be likewise the cause of our vocation and justification but the latter is false therefore the former The Major is proved by that undeniable Axiome Quicquid est causa causae est causa etiam causati that which is the cause of the cause is the cause of the thing caused The Minor is proved 2 Tim. 1.9 and Ephes 2.8 Rom. 3.24 justified freely by his grace To which you offer an answer thus That this argument may tend to the confutation of them that hold foreseen faith works or the embracing of the means to be the causes of their election but it hits not us for we hold no such thing neither is any such thing asserted in this position Answ Short and therefore sweet I curtail mine as you do yours by telling you that I delight not to surfeit the Reader with a dish of Crambe terque quaterque recocta but shall desire him to revise my defence of my first Argument and so impartially to judge whether foreseen faith and embraing of the means be not implicitly asserted in your Position as motives to election so that the Argument not onely hits you on the back but so gores your sides that your Position staggers and expects a better cordial then either your wit or art are able to administer to keep life in it Your next advance is against my sixth Argument which is this If our election were dependent on mans
not put my self to the trouble to fight against your vain shadows and so exit your own Position Et valeat ut valere potest Your next advance is to the rescue of your second Position viz. Position 2. That God saw persons embracing the means of salvation and those he elected in Christ from the foundation of the world to everlasting life c. This is so far from soundness you say that it is flat Pelagianism an old heresie exploded out of the Church for many ages since by which you say that it must be concluded that the eternal decree of Gods unchangeable election must be dependent on the intervention of mans liberty of willing and working c. To which you frame this answer What it was that Pelagius the Monk held you may see in the Ecclesiastical Chronography of Eusebius Pamphilus pag. 595. also it makes no matter to me in these things it is possible he might hold a truth as well as Calvin But the Fathers of whom we have learned these things are those that have not erred in their doctrine which are those before mentioned to wit Jesus Christ himself the holy Prophets and Apostles but the Scripture when it speaketh of election makes it to be altogether independent on the creature so as that nothing acted or done by the creature is to be accounted of as a motive incentive meritorious or procuring ground or cause as this man doth endevour to cast upon me I freely grant to be a truth according to the Scriptures by him brought in Ephes 1.5 11. Answ Sir there was no need to have informed me but to evidence your reading where I might have an account of the abominable paradoxes of blasphemous Pelagius cried down by all antiquity as well as by all our modernâ— for his detracting from the free grace of God and exalting of the liberty of the will and placing it in Gods stead at least putting them cheek by jowl together For though by other several Chronographers the grosseness of his heresie be more copiously painted out yet in the tripartite History according to you cited there is to be found so much as to abominate even the name of the man by reason of his cursed opinion being there ranked out in the columne of Hereticks and therefore it seems a wonder to me that any one that is but a pretender to Religion should have so much impudence and be so Galliolized Act. 18.17 as not to care for these things But to put him into the scales with reverend Calvin Psal 112.6 whose good name shall be had in an everlasting remembrance and whose lustre will dazle all your new lights I know none besides your self would have had the face of brass to have done it For the latter part of this paraphrase in your confession of Gods independency on outward things and that he hath not from thence any motive or incentive c. for his election of any I heartily thank you especially if I could imagine that this did not proceed ex labiis dolosis but that it were done in reality and truth but when I find that this acknowledgement of yours doth so much interfere with your often dictates I shall onely judge of you as of that clown in the fable who blowes both hot and cold with one breath here you seem to ascribe all to the good pleasure of Gods will in the business of election but otherwhere as I shall hereafter manifest a mans free will according to you in working and believing must be joynt-parceners with God so that the vote shall be as was the Harlots which came before Solomon to determine of the dead child 1 King 4.26 nec mihi nec tibi sed dividatur let it be neither mine nor thine but divide it You go one with your discourse neither is there any thing in this Position tending to the exaltation of the creature to be any motive or incentive cause for which God elects as a meritorious or procuring ground or cause of it for to say God saw some men embracing the means of salvation or that the embracing the means of salvation is a meritorious or procuring ground or cause of our election any more then the words of the holy Spirit spoken by David Psal 4.3 But know that the Lord hath set apart him that is godly for himself should be a meritorious cause of the godly mans being set apart or chosen to the Lord neither is there any more ground or cause to call the words of this Position flat Pelugianism or an old heresie then there is to call the words of David so Answ It was heretofore generally observed that when anyone came to consult the Delphian Oracle whether out of curiosity or necessity it matters not that the responses of the Flamens were so abstruse and equivocall that which way soever the success did fall yet they might have a starting hole to preserve the credit of their Oracle As for instance in one of their answers Ibis redibis nunquam per bella peribis the issue thereof being contrary to expectation they made another sense of the words onely by pointing of them thus Ibis peribis nunquam per bella peribis and truly howsoever all those Oracles ceased at the coming of Christ in the flesh yet methinks I see the same spirit of delusion now working in these children of darkness for look upon this man as to his Positions here so by others his complices the Arminians and Socinians when they find themselves pincht by any Argument that they can finde no subterf ge for evasion then they betake themselves to shifts of Amphibology and fall to denying of the proper sense and scope of their own tenets because perhaps not comprehended in express syllables and words of their Positions for this man with whom I have to deal though he wants not that face of brass to deny that there is nothing couched under the Position to exalt the creature as in whom there should be somewhat which God should look upon as a motive or procuring ground or cause for God to elect such so qualified Yet by the assistance of my God I shall clearly make it to appear in my defence of my first Argument that according to these men believing or faith and perseverance therein is such a condition prerequisite and so lookt upon by God in the Act of election as without which he elects not and for which he doth elect and so becomes a moving or procuring cause why he doth elect any one as is generally by them maintained For that Scripture alledged Psal 4.3 is nihil ad Rhombum being quite alien from the case depending we are now treating of the eternal and Immanent act of God in electing before all time and the place quoted is to be understood of Gods effectual vocation a transient act of God in time where he actually sets apart him i. e. him that is in existence and being him that is Godly i. e. such
the substance thereof is contained in your Positions and that you grant the force and virtue of a moving cause unto faith in respect of Gods electing it must thence be concluded that you assert some moving causes and That faith is lookt upon by you as a moving cause will appear by these ensuing Arguments 1. I know it will not be stood upon by you nor any of your gang that faith is a condition or qualification so lookt upon by God as that without which he doth not elect no as we affirm that to such persons so elected he decrees to give it but according to you that where he finds it which is the sense of their foresight there or those he will elect and if thus tell me in sober sadness what difference can you make between a qualification or condition wherein God placeth his purpose and decree and that which we call a moving cause 2. In election you make believers the adequate object thereof and faith is made the formal reason of this object now this is a known axiome to those versed in these controversies Ratio formalis adaequati objecti semper est specificans causa illius habitus potentiae vel actus cujus est objectum That the formal reason of the adequate object is alwaies a specifying cause of the habit power or act whereof it is the object So a thing that is good being apprehended by the intellect is the cause of willing because it hath the reason of its formal object So after the same manner when you set down faith in respect of election as the formal reason of the object and that as you teach God hath from without himself proper causes of willing you can give no just reason why we may not say that you make faith the cause of election 3. This moreover I believe you wil not deny that what place infidelity hath in the point of Reprobation the like should faith have in the point of election as being opposite species But according to you infidelity is not onely affirmed to be the cause of Reprobation but the contrary doctrine is cryed down by you as most abominable and therefore in election should faith be the cause thereof 4. If faith doth determine the will of God being otherwise indifferent to choose one rather then another then it is a cause of election But according to you faith hath this determining power for with you besides faith and the embracing of the means nothing antecedes the decree of election which is not common to the non-elect and nothing that is common doth determine and therefore it is necessary that the reason of the determination be placed in faith and embracing of the means so that notwithstanding all your fair flourishes of denyal of motives causes and inâ—entives I must needs conclude that you do at least implicitly assert faith foreseen in those that will believe is the motive cause and procuring ground of Gods electing any to salvation And thus I conceive my first Argument stands in its full strength notwithstanding the assaults of your dudgeon dagger drawn aginst it So that this may be enough to those who are wise to understand that which is good and for others I shall sit down quietly upon Solomons account Prov. 27.22 Though thou shouldest bray a fool in a morter with a pestle yet will not his foolishness depart from him But in the close of this you except against some of those portions of Scripture by me cited saying It is to be minded that the people spoken of in those Scriptures by him quoted out of Deut. 7.7 8. and 10.15 are said in the first verse of the seventh Chapter to be a holy people unto the Lord their God and those people which are said at that time to be a holy people and chosen to be a special people unto the Lord their God above all the people that were upon the face of the earth afterwards for their murmuring against God and tempting of him ten times and not hearkening to his voice were destroyed in the wilderness and their carcasses fell in the wilderness through their unbelief and doubtless saith God you shall not come into the land concerning which I sware to make you dwell therein Numb 14.29 30. and thus they came to know his breach of promise vers 34. See also Heb. 3.16 17 18 19. Sir this excursion of yours I imagine is intended upon another account viz. to lay a stumbling-block in the Saints way that they may fall away from grace received for in so far as I made use of them to prove that there was no external motive in the object neither of holiness nor believing for which God did set his love upon them to elect them those places alledged will carry it clear enough And therefore to what you mind that they are called ver 6. a Holy people I hope you will distinguish of the holiness of a people There is first an external and federal holiness and this they had by circumcision outward profession and as being visible covenanters Secondly Internal and real holiness wrought onely by the finger of God in changing of their natures and making of them new creatures t is the first that is here meant and not the second And whereas you write that these people which are here called a holy people fell in the wilderness through unbelief Sir I must tell you that I do not take you to be so excellent at Chronography as to make it appear that they were these numerical people here spoken of See 1 Cor. 10.5 with many God not well pleased that so fell in the wilderness But admit they were it is said their carcasses fell in the wilderness i. e. they died in the wilderness but what followes hence did they all therefore fall into hell Absit God forbid that any one should make such a desperate conclusion But youl 'e say they fell through unbelief yet I must tell you that though they wanted that historical faith in not believing the relations of the searchers of the land of Canaan See 1 Cor. 10.4 they drank of that spiritual rock and that rock was Christ Numb 23.19 yet they might have a saving and justifying faith in believing Christ should be crucifyed for them notwithstanding what is here or can be alledged to the contrary But why you set these words and thus they came to know his breach of promise in words at length and not in figures I am unwilling to deliver my thoughts But do you think that God is a man that he should lye or as the son of man that he should repent hath he said and shall he not do it or hath he spoken and shall he not make it good Isa 46.10 no his counsel shall stand and he will do all his pleasure But this is spoken by an Anthropopathy bringing in God to do after the manner of men for our weak capacities For the temporal promises of God are but conditions
but the meer good pleasure of Gods most holy and righteous Will who will do with his creature what he will do neither can any expostulate why hast thou done thus Esa 45.9 It is true that sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means are just causes why God decrees such persons to hell and eternal torments but yet not the causes of their reprobation that is solely and singly in the good pleasure of his Will Ephes 1.5 which I prove by these Arguments 1. Arg. That which the holy Ghost in the Scripture ascribes unto the sole will and good pleasure of God that we are not to assign other causes to But the Scripture assigns reprobation solely to Gods will Therefore For proof of the minor proposition see these texts Rom. 7.18 whom he will he hardeneth ver 20 21. Nay but O man who art thou that replyest against God shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the potter power over the clay of the same lump to make one vessell unto honour and another unto dishonour ver 22. What if God willing to shew his wrath and make his power known endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted or made up for destruction Matth. 11.26 Even so O Father for so it seemed good in thy sight Matth. 10.15 Is it not lawful to do what I will with mine own ver 16. Many called few chosen Prov. 16.4 The Lord hath made all things for himself yea even the wicked for the day of evil Rom. 9.11 12 13. for the children being not yet born ver 17. for this same purpose have I raised thee 2. Arg. That which is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation cannot be the cause of it But sin unbelief and rejecting the means is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation Therefore The major is as clear as the sun The minor proposition is proved from these texts Math. 11.25 26. I thank thee father c. for so it seemed good in thy sight He hid those things not outwardly but inwardly Ioh. 6.36 37. Christ to the Capernaites I said unto you that ye also have seen me believed not all that the father giveth me shall come to me signifying that they are not given to him of the father and therefore reprobated Ioh. 8.46 47. Christ to the Pharisees If I say the truth why do ye not believe me he that is of God heareth Gods word ye therefore hear them not because ye are not of God i.e. ye are reprobates Ioh. 10.26 Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep i. e. not of the number of my elect Ioh. 12.39 40. Of the whole company of the Jews Therefore they could not believe because Esaias said he hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts viz. God according to his decree Rom. 9.18 whom he will he hardens and ver 33. Behold I lay in Sion a stumbling-stone and rock of offence Rom. 11.7 8. the election hath obtained it the rest are hardened for God hath given them the spirit of slumber c. 1 Pet. 2.8 which stumble at the word being disobedient whereunto also they were appointed 3. Arg. If sin and unbelief and rejecting of the means of salvation are the onely causes why God reprobates any then there is no such mystery in the decree of reprobation neither are Gods waies herein so unsearchable and past finding out but that the true and undoubted cause may be assigned But yet they are mysterious and unsearchable See Rom. 9.14 What shall we say then is there unrighteousness with God God forbid Rom. 1.33 34. O the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable are his judgements and his waies past finding out for who hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counsellour 4. Arg. If the foresight of sin and unbelief and rejecting the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation then these absurdities will unavoidably follow 1. That no child dying in infancy can possibly be reprobated 2. Neither such Gentiles or Turks Indians or Salvages that never heard of Christ who never enjoyed the Gospel nor ever had the means tendred to them for how can they believe in him on whom they have not heard Rom. 10. and how can they reject that which was never tendred unto them as many nations in the world who are strangers from the life of God Ephe. 1.12 3. If the foresight of sin should be the cause of Reprobation then the elect should be equally lyable to the decree of reprobation as the Reprobates themselves they all being alike in the corrupt mass and lump of Adams transgression Rom. 9.21 22 23 24. Iohn 15.19 20. If ye were of the world c. Ephes 2.1 2 3. children of wrath as well as others Rom. 3.10 and there is none righteous no not one 4. Then Paul was mistaken Rom. 9.11 in not assigning sin to be the cause of Reprobation 5. The same Apostle then answered very unsoundly to those objections Rom. 9.13 14. The first is if God reprobated Esau because he hated him then he was unjust The second ver 19. Why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will For he might in one word have answered to both the objections and said that sin was the cause of reprobating both of Esau and Pharaoh but he saith the contrary ver 11. When they had done neither good nor evil Iacob have I loved and Esau have I hated Mal. 1.2 6. Hereby we confine Gods infinite soveraignty over his creatures to the narrow scantling of our subordinate power as though he might not do with his own what he lists without our controll and not make a vessel either of honour or of dishonour unless he were accountable to us for the reason of his so doing For the fourth and fifth Positions These may pass with a grain of Salt bating some impropriety in the expressions and I am not so at leisure to teach such men to express themselves after a Theological manner either in their teaching or writing For the sixth Thesis I must ingenuously confess it is such a Mystery or Paradox and so involved with seeming contradictions that I want an Oedipus to unriddle the meaning of it I have been a little acquainted with the opinions of the Pelagians Semipelagians Papists Arminians Socinians and Anabaptists and amongst them all can observe none of them jumping in with this mans judgement for thus he writes All men are sometimes convinced of sin and the state of nature What his meaning is by the state of nature I cannot divine If his sense be that every man is at one time or other convinced that by nature he is a child of wrath and disobedience and dead in trespasses and sins and so t is false for most men have not such convictions Next And are made alive by the works of the spirit by this all men should be
who by the inward working of his spirit he hath made Godly For himself i. e. to do him service and live to his glory See Exod. 33.16 Or else this may be understood and that the scope of the place bears necessarily That the Lord hath set apart for some place 〈◊〉 of eminency office and trust him that is Godly as David was foâ— to be more Instrumental for the glory of God and good of his people What you write that there is no more ground or cause tâ— call the words of this position Pelagianism or an old heresy thaâ— there is to call the words of David so is but meer vapour and smoke because the words of David beare no proposition nor do not in the least degree carry any correspondence with the position To what you write for if him that is Godly or believers oâ— those that imbrace the means of salvation be not those that God hath elected in Christ to eternal life then shew me by plain Scripture-proof if you can who they be and what be their names that we may know them I answer roundly thus Answ That such as are thus qualified i. e. that are Godly that are believers and that in sincerity and truth such carry the evidence in themselves their faith and Godliness are arguments symptomes signes to them that they are elected And that as Eph. 1.4 he is said there to elect some that they should be holy so God hath elected such numerical persons that he will withâ—l in his good time make them godly make them believers make them to imbrace the means of salvation by working all their works in them Esa 26.12 Yet God hath not elected any whom he foresaw that by the power of his own free will and liberty of choosing and refusing would be Godly or would believe or would imbrace the means no the object of election was of men in their blood Ezek. 6.16 enemies Rom. 5.10 ungodly Rom. 4.5 sinners 1 Tim. 1.15 And this indeed is the main that I so zealously contend for to beat down all worth or excellency in the creature and to ascribe the sole glory unto God in making him the Alpha and Omega the first and the last in the whole transaction of mans salvation and which my Adversary implicitely denies though in express terms he is ashamed to profess it with a full mouth 1 Sam. 15.14 what meane else the bleatings of these words in my ears page 13. I should sin against Christ if I should say that believing in him were no cause at all and page 39. as it is the good pleasure of God to let the sons of men enjoy a sufficiency of means c. so he gives them liberty in the right use thereof in the day of Grace to choose or refuse and it cannot be otherwise so a choice must needs be at liberty and if there were not a liberty given of God in these things c. Mary hath chosen the better part c. But of these in their several places What further you write Shew me by plain Scripture if you can who they be and what be their names that we may know them is a question more suitable to be proposed by a boy of four years old for if he had been older a rod had been fitter for him then an answer And yet let me tell you Rev. 2.17 Rev. 5.1 Kev 20.12 that those which are elected when once they come to be believers they have a new name given which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it and the book wherein their names are written is as yet a sealed book But when the book shall be opened which is the book of life then it shall be legible even in such great Characters that he that runs may read who they be and what be their names In the mean time the secret things belong to the Lord our God Deut. 29.29 but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our Children for ever that we may do them You further say and if these Scriptures to wit Psal 37. from vers 9. to vers 21. Prov. 3.33 34 35 and Mar. 16.16 together with many other of the sayings of the holy Spirit in the Scripture that have the like sound be not for substance a true coppy of Gods decree of Election and Reprobation from the foundation of the world then shew us a true Copy of it if you can Answ Alas Alas what will not ignorance at least mixt with impudence 2 Tim. 3.6 endeavour to obtrude upon a simple people by creeping into houses and leading captive silly people laden with sin But tell me Sir though it may be possible for you to delude your dull-sighted proselytes with such fopperies as these is it with you imaginable that men of parts and gifts will swallow down such gudgeons such Camels revise the Scriptures that you there cited and see whether any part of any one of them breath the least aire as to matter of Election or Reprobation whether any of them carries any import either in express words or by way of consequence to these eternal decrees And that it may appear that I charge you not unadvisedly let us take a view of the Scriptures apart 1 For that Psal 37.9 to vers 21. The scope of that Psalm is to direct the Godly how to deport themselves especially in reference to the wicked when flourishing in prosperity and to this end 1 He sets down what their duty is 2. He presseth that duty by several Arguments Their first duty is that they beware of angâ—â— and envy whereto they might be tempted upon that occasion oâ— the wickeds prosperity ver 1.7.8 2 That on the contrary they fortifie themselves with faith and hope in God ver 3 5 6. The arguments he useth for confirmation are drawn 1 From the end and issue of both their conditions how both the Godly and wicked shall succeed viz. it shall fall out well for the Godly but ill for the wicked ver 9 10 11. A 2. Is drawn from the cause of this issue and event viz. the efficatious providence of God from the 12 ver to the 21 ver which is illustrated by the effects as 1. The confusion of the wicked in their evil counsel ver 12 13 14 15. 2 By blessing of the little which the righteous man hath beyond all the riches of many wicked ones 3 by a protection and deliverance of the Godly man from those evils wherein the wicked are overwhelmed vers 20 23 24. now what is all this to Election or Reprobation For the place of Prov. 3.33 c. Solomon in all the former part of that chapter exhorteth to an endeavour after divers Graces as the contents thereof do imply The argument whereby he presseth it is from the diverse end and issue of those who are adorned with and those who want those graces which are exprest in these three last verses by you cited But what is this likewise
his own will and accountable to none it is lawful for him to do what he will with his own c. Mat. 29.15 Rom. 11.35 As a just Judge and so he punisheth none but for sinne Rom. 1 32. 2 Thess 1.6 And thus having drawn you a fair copy of election and Predestination I am now at leisure to see what you will say to my first Argument which in forme is this If the rise of our election be sounded on the meer mercy and free grace of God then it is not upon Gods foresight of mans embracing the means of salvation But it is founded in the meer mercy and free grace of God therefore not upon the foresight of the embracing the means To which you frame this answer The first proposition or Major he saith is unquestionable and that is all the proof that we have from him for it saying there is but one cause to produce the effect The Minor he bringeth Scripture for the proof of it the truth of which I do not question the Scriptures are Deut. 7.7 8. and 10.15 Matth. 20.15 Luk. 12.32 Rom. 9.11 18 21. Eph. 1.5 11. 2 Tim. 1.9 The Minor it appears you give fair quarter to and let it pass upon its paroll T is the major you quarrel at as having nothing to second it but this saying that there is but one cause to produce the effect and truly Sir I believe that might have been unquestionable to any but you and your comrades who do nodum in scirpo quaerere I had thought it might have past for unquestionable divinity that God is so jealous a God that he will not communicate his glory to any other and that if any act of Grace pass singly and solely from himself that then no other creature could have been a copartner with him and that if of grace then not of works which is nothing else but the embracing of the means And to that foundation which was laid before all time other foundation can no man lay then that is laid especially in time And that as to the foreknowledge of God or his foresight God doth not foresee any thing which he hath not decreed either efficaciously to do or permit to be done So that his foreknowledge should rest upon the decree and at no hand to depend on the things to be done but that all things depend upon that and that God did see nothing in their causes which he did not before see in his decree these I thought had been unquestionable truths till Thomas Faswel calls them into question pretending that though grace may be of free and meer mercy yet there may be a concurrence of mans actings in the embracing of the means And whence doth all this arise but from an embasing of the Majesty of God by measuring his corn by your bushel Isa 55.8 9. making his waies like our waies and his thoughts like our thoughts No Sir I would have you go to school and learn the vast difference between humane and divine knowledge humane knowledge doth depend upon the existence of things and things are the measure thereof but for divine knowledge that is the measure of things and things depend upon that not that on them And certainly unless this be granted the foundation of divine providence must needs come to wrack God could not hold his prerogative royal of being the first cause of all things yea second causes would be made independent in many acts yea consequently in all for how the second cause could work or be appointed to work without the concourse of the first cause it looks like contradictio in objecto Or how else could God certainly foresee such things to come to pass which are supposed onely to be foreseen and not withal to be provided for and preordained For as the things are so is the knowledge of the things and that which hath not certain causes of futurition cannot certainly be foreknown for certainly to foreknow what is not certainly to come to pass is to have a knowledge of a thing not as what it is but as what it is not and what will then become of Gods foreknowledge But whereto tends the designe of the adversary surely that an in let may be made and beds of roses troden out to introduce that great Diana the liberty of the will to choose or refuse what shall be presented to it notwithstanding all prescience or decree and to make that a â—oynt-share with God nay if not to have the greatest predominan y in the whole work of mans salvation so placing nature in the stead and room of grace but let God bâ— true and all men lyars For mine own sake yea even for mine own sake will I do it and I will not give my glory unto another Isa 48.12 You double your alarm against my Major thus But notwithstanding he setteth such a strong guard upon his Major saying it is unquestionable yet I must needs question the the mans meaning in the sequel or consequence of it Then it is not upon Gods foresight of mans embracing the means of salvation Non veniunt e pharetris istae sagittae tuis Answ These notions were not darted out of a weavers shuttle Sir you are too well known then that any man can believe you that you can spit out Greek and speak in a dream of propositions Categorical Hypothetical antecedent consequent Major Minor sequel c. It was not the Serpent that spoke but the Devil in the Serpent Judg. 14.18 Doubtless you plough with another mans heifer Not that I atttribute any such excellency to the piece for as it will appear it is full gorged with abundance of falsities incongruities inconsistencies that no profest Scholler might own it and therefore what Davus soever it was that was your confederate he thought it best to lie coucht under the shadow of your wing and so make you his Bellerophon his packhorse to bear all his absurdities shame and scorn and so you must for I know none else that will proceed as you do Now if his meaning be that God doth not at all respect the embracing of the means of salvation then it is by me denyed for although mans believing and obeying the Gospel or embracing the means of salvation be not to be accounted of as a motive incentive or a procuring ground or cause for which God elects men and women to eternal life yet it hath been the good will and pleasure of our God through his loving kindness and freeness of his grace even when he was at liberty and might have left mankind in that lost and perishing condition that mans sinne had brought him into and have been just in so doing but I say it hath been his pleasure when he was at liberty to engage himself by purpose and decree to elect justifie and save all those men and women that did or should in time embrace the means of salvation which from before the foundation of the world he did intend
Gentiles did not follow after righteousness yet they have attained to the law of righteousness because they believed in Christ and on the contrary that the Jews though they followed after righteousness yet they have not attained unto righteousness because they believe not in Christ but seek justification by their own works and together with this he sets forth the cause why they believed not in Christ because they were offended with or at him at which offence of theirs lest believers should be offended he declares that that of old was declared by the Prophet Isa 8.14 and 28.16 You hold on at the same rate as you have begun thus and in chap. 3. where he wholly excludeth the deeds of the law in the business of justification saying v. 20. Therefore by the deeds of the law shall no flesh living be justified in his sight for by the Law is the knowledge of sin but sheweth that faith is for another end and use in the following verses and then in making enquirie in the 27. ver Where is boasting then it is saith Paul excluded By what law of works Nay but by the law of faith In which words of the Apostle it is clear that faith and the deeds of the law are different and the law of works and the law of faith have different ends and as he concludes in ver 20. that by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in the sight of God So in ver 28. he makes that a sure ground by which he certainly concludeth that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law And so also in chap. 4.5 But to him that worketh not but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly his faith is accounted to him for righteousness And so preferring faith or shewing that as faith was counted to Abraham for righteousness so faith is counted to all that believe for righteousness and the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law but through the righteousness of faith ver 13. For if they which are of the law be heirs faith is made void and the promise made of none effect ver 14. Because the law worketh wrath for where no law is there is no transgression ver 15. and then concludes again in ver 16. That in regard That to be justified in the sight of God or to be the heir of the world was not through the law nor of the law nor by the deeds of the law therefore saith he it is of faith that it might be by grace to the end that the promise might be sure to all the seed See also chap. 5.1 2. Answ What need was there of all this parcel of impertinent words quite besides the business inhand we are upon the point of election and all this is about justification Let me for hereafter give you this for a Motto Hoc age remember what you are about I do readily acknowledge that there are different ends of the law and of faith the most exact and strictest observers of the law could never obtain perfection thence Heb. 7.19 Heb. 10.1 The law made nothing perfect The sacrifices that they offered from year to year could not make the comers thereunto perfect There was an impotency and beggarliness in the observances of the Law to justifie their persons and make them accepted of God and truly Sir so is faith so far as it is ours Cor. our graces are all imperfect we know but in part our faith is mixt with some doubtings hence Lord I believe help mine unbelief O Lord increase our faith for we are of little faith Nay were any the best of men nay or of all the men in the world their graces put all in a lump together the excellency of all those graces of all those persons could not amount unto such a value as to justifie any one person and render him acceptable to God Eph. But when Christ is received by faith his merit mediation and intercession presents them to God the Father holy and without blemish they are complete in Christ Col. 1.28 and 2.10 and 4.12 Even by those ornaments he hath put on them Ezek. 16.14 T is Christ who is our Passover our peace our propitiation our righteousness our justifier that reconciles God and man together Faith of it self is but a creature and hath no such omnipotency and though it be an uniting and an excellent Grace yet it is a gift wrought in us by the immediate finger of God and not of our own strength yea it is a part of the purchase of Jesus Christ merited by his death and passion and he gives it to those sheep that little flock which were given to him of the father and those sheep he knows by name Joh. 10.3.27 and 13.18 You draw near to a conclusion and say so that we may see that although election to life and salvation and to be justified in the sight of God be not of the law nor through the law nor by the deeds of the law nor yet for faith and yet it is by faith and through faith and in believing and no where said to be without it by which it doth appeare that the putting off faith and works and the use of means altogether and to say that God had no more respect to faith and the use of the means of salvation then he had to the works of the law in electing and justifying persons in his sight to eternal life is a mistake at least if it amount not to an error Answ Sir abate me but two words in all this and that before viz. election and electing and I le freely give you without begging all the rest But truly Sir this is no fair play especially in divine things this trajection and slipping from one species of a mercy to another so unworthily to foist in to give it no harsher a term the word election as though those places before quoted by you had spoken to it when there is not one word mentioned that looks that way but onely speaks of Justification all which as to that I give you gratis deal more faithfully hereafter with your over-credulous learners and readers And now you conclude what you have to say against this Argument thus For if God respect not faith and use of means in the electing of men and women to life and salvation then shew by plain Scripture-proof if you can what it is that he respects for we have learned already that he respecteth not persons Acts 10.34 Rom. 2.11 1 Pet. 17. 1. Col. 3.25 Answ Why Sir I have often inculcated that in election the Lord ultimately consults his own glory and that there is no external condition or qualification in the object that he hath any such respect unto as that because thereof he doth elect yea nothing besides the manifestation of his infinitely rich mercy and to his glory in extending it to such undeserving
any preparation or disposition thereunto but solely in the bosome of the God of heaven who according to the counsel of his own will from all eternity differenceth one person from another Iacob from Esau decreeing and destinating both unto glory as the end and likewise unto saving grace as the means conducing to that end For if besides the act of God thus specifying or distinguishing man should have any stroke as that through his own strength or acting at all Ephes 2.9 Hab. 1.16 1 Cor. 4.7 as to his own being decreed to salvation then a man had whereof to boast then might he sacrifice to his own net and burn incense to his own drag then man had made himself to differ and he had that which he never had received And if those former Scriptures by me alledged seem not to you of full weight Luk. 6.38 take these following to the bargain which doutbtless will make it good measure pressed down shaken together and running over First as to the exclusion of all creature-interests besides the alone will of God which is his decree of election Mat. 11.25 Luke 12.31 Secondly as to the confirming of this grant ad numerum numeratum as to a set definite and known number The Lord knoweth who are his 2 Tim. 2.19 he knows whom he hath chosen Ioh. 13.18 he knows his sheep Ioh. 10.27 yea he knows them by name Ioh. 10.3 their names are written in heaven Luk. 10.20 yea in the spirits book Rev. 13.8 even in the book of life Phil. 4.3 Rev. 21.12 So that having discharged this Argument likewise from the burden you cast upon it by your crude exceptions I am now at liberty to come to the relief of My fourth Argument which is this If faith and works be the fruits and effects of election then they are no waies causes of it for which God should elect But they are fruits and effects Acts 13.48 as many as were ordained to life believed Eph. 2.4 7 8 9 16. To which you answer First See here what ado the man makes with works and causes as the position never mentioneth Answ Sir that I inserted works into any of my Arguments I have given the reason thereof in my defence of my second Argument to wit for the avoiding of vain Tautologies I must refer the Reader and as to causes to my first Argument and though it be true that totidem verbis causes are not exprest in the position yet by an unavoydable consequence they are implied and therefore if the man had holden fast the forme of sound words 2 Tim. 1.13 1 Tim. 6.3 and consented to wholesome words even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the Doctrine which is according to Godliness much of this contest would have been spared The holy Scriptures and this mans learned writings were not calculated for the same meridian they will not easily suite for one hemisphere where find you in all the holy writings such a style as this especially as to matter of election God saw some men embracing the means and those he elected I have not found the like in Scripture whatsoever this man hath done in his rarer observations but sure I believe he laid it purposely as a gin to catch woodcocks no Sir when you set forth any doctrinal truth by way of a position you ought to keep as close to a Scripture-phrase as possibly the subject matter will bear Secondly you answer by way of a demand what ground he hath to say that faith and works be the fruits and effects of election except it be this that because election goeth before and faith and works follow after and by that way of reasoning he may as well say that Abels death was the effect of Cains birth and that may be accounted the cause of it but yet Cains being born had not effected it if he had not afterwards rose up against him and slew him and so he came to his death it being effected by that means so likewise notwithstanding the Decree of election was before man had any being yet faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God Rom. 10.17 as a means appointed by God for the effecting of it that so men might fall under the decree of salvation that is appointed by God to be the portion of believers from before the foundation of the world Answ I shall return upon you in our Saviours language Luk. 19.22 Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee thou wicked servant But even now did you consent Promises did flow from the decree of election and yet though we had not reum confitentem we are not so barren and empty of solid grounds for what we say or do affirm Ephes 1.3 that all those spiritual blessings in heavenly places thâ—â— a believer from first to last is made partaker of they all flow unto us and are conferred on us as fruits and effects of election Rom. 11.7 election hath obtained it that Christ was given of the Father that he was incarnate crucified dead raised from death to life that he ascended up on high and that now he sits on Gods right hand and acteth now daily as an intercessor all these flow from election Gal. 4.4 1 Pet. 1.20 Luk. 24.26 Phil. 2.6 c. That any are effectually called according to purpose t is the effect of election Rom. 8.28 and ver 23.24 c. Justification is from election 8.30 c. Sanctification from election Rom. 6.22 Your fruit unto holiness Ephes 1.4 Chosen that we should be holy All which Graces and priviledges as they are fruits and effects of election so are they all of them in their several stations and relations causes of salvation and every antecedent grace is a cause of its consequent grace and the salvation of the elect which is their consummate Glorification is the common effect both of the first cause as of all the intermediate and secondary causes At last you bid defiance to this Argument by having a fling at that Classical text of Scripture Acts 13.48 retorting it upon me thus To his Greek that he writeth in the margin of his paper from Acts 13.48 As many as were ordained c. I do desire him to look once more into his Greek Testament and then let him as he will be willing to answer it before the Judge of the world the Lord Iesus at his appearing when he shall come in his glory and let him speak according to his conscience upon that account whether he cannot read the same words in the Greek from which the word ordained is translated to be the same with that in 1 Cor. 16.15 from which the word addicted is translated and also I shall appeal to the consciences of reasonable people whether it be not a suitable and an agreeable kinde of reading it being directly contrary to what the Jews did v. 45. they spoke against those things which were spoken by Paul contradicting and blaspheming and so
man is every one that hearkneth to the counsel of God given forth by Jesus Christ and embraceth the means of salvation even the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel hath come under consideration already in the interpretation of Psal 4.3 pag. 33. where it shews that God sets apart actually in time for some place of trust or office him that is godly but what hath this to do with election before all time You make your oration longer saying For I dare boldly affirme that the Lord Christ spoke the mind of the Father even that which was the purpose and decree of God when he said Iohn 3.15 16. That whosoever beleiveth in him should not perish but have everlasting life and so every one that believeth in the King of righteousness may in the laws of the same King read or find their title good to the everlasting inheritance and thus 1 Ioh. 5.10 he that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself God giving the holy spirit to those that obey him Act. 5.32 to wit Jesus Christ and as many as are led by that spirit of God up in obedience to the Son of God Christ Jesus are the sons of God Rom. 8.14 and all this is made known unto us that are believers in Christ that we might know who or what sort or kind of people they are that God did freely set his love upon and in his purpose and decree even when he might have left us as lost creatures chose us unto himself not for these things or for any thing he saw in us or acted by us in the least as any motive incentive or procuring ground or cause of our election but the purpose decree and promise came freely from himself even to decree himself to be the God and father of such a sort or kind of people as aforesaid in Jesus Christ Answ You say you dare boldly affirme and I say there is none so bold as blind bayard and yet I will not deny that the Lord Christ spoke the mind of his Father even that which was the purpose and decree of God when he said Ioh. 3.15 16. Whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life c. But Sir you must remember that the question is not whether there be any such purpose and decree viz. that every one that believeth shall be saved and that every one that believeth not shall be damned But whether these be all the decrees that God hath made concerning mans final and everlasting estate yea and to speak properly whether this be any decree of predestination at all wherein no body is predestinated elected nor reprobated Sir these expressions that you represent are onely declaratory publications of the Gospel propounded under conditional terms and obvious in all the Evangelists But tell me where I shall find Et eris mihi magnus Apollo If any man doth believe and embrace the means he shall be predestinated or he shall be elected Faith is a product of election an effect in time flowing from the eternal decree and not a foreseen condition or qualification drawing after it Gods eternal election T is beyond all question and we dispute it not that God in the same eternity whereby he elected some and passed by others foresaw in his decree because he foresaw what he would either do or suffer to be done he foresaw I say both what the elect and what the non elect would do and what contrary ends they would come unto he being the orderer of them both of Esau aswel as Iacob But here sticks the knot of the question whether the different actions of men foreseen caused the different decrees of Election and reprobation which we utterly deny and this is incumbent on you to prove which you will do ad Gracas calendas And therefore it is but a wild expression altogether incongruous with the Scripture-phrase to say that God decreed himself to be the God and father of such a sort or kind of people as should embrace the means give me its parallel and I le ask you pardon But Sir now I remember my self you have a toleration to speak non-sense For you run along in the same strain thus And so absolute and irrevocable is this decree of Gods unchangeable election that even the worst of men in their natural condition or any men or women in the world which do consider how great things God hath done for them as they are sinners and lost creatures by reason thereof and return unto their maker in embracing the means of salvation in being changed from their evil course of life departing from sin and leaving the vanities of this world and believe in Jesus with an upright heart and with a willing mind they coming to be so changed as aforesaid fall into that decree of God that changeth not and so that which was in the purpose and decree of God before rime actually cometh to be put in execution in time and so all the promises of God in Christ unavoydably come to be the portion of such a changed people which are Act. 26.18 turned from darkness to light that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith that is in Christ Jesus Answ Sir abate me but these words fall into the decree of God and I le freely grant you all the rest that which you hint at as the inward sense of our own unworthiness and relying on the never failing mercies of God in Christ a departing from the ends of our own waies and a cleaving unto God with a purpose of heart are so many lively Characters evidences and badges that such a one was an elect person before the foundation of the world was laid and that that same eternal though secret decree of mercy towards him before all time comes now to be put in execution and manifested to all the world in time and this he knows in that he is a new creature and turned from darkness to light c. But to say that when these Characters or marks are in him then he falls into the decree of God is such a peice of unheard of novelty that a man shall not ordinarily meet with your compeer thus to confound election with regeneration but those of your rank are licentiates for such pranks That which doth ensue in a qualified sense may be digested viz. when you say But although our embracing the means of salvation and believing in Jesus and obeying his voice be no meritorious or procuring ground or cause why God made such a decree but that which was the moving cause thereof was his love as hath been already granted yet the embracing the means and believing in Jesus and obeying his voice is of necessity to be done by those that have the Gospel preached unto them as an instrumental cause by which the purpose and decree of God in order to their everlasting good cometh to be put in execution as a way
and means appointed of God for that end and one would think that this man were a little of my mind in this by what falleth from him in the close of this second Argument using these words at least for the moving of God to elect Sir If here where you make mention of any Instrumental cause you intend onely the Instrumental means of salvation then I joyne with you for as I have before asserted That as God hath decreed the end so likewise hath he decreed the means conducing to that end But as there is no external cause at all and therefore none Instrumental for which he doth elect before all time but all arising from within himself even his own love and good pleasure so when that decree comes to be put into execution in time then there are subordinate causes but all set on work by the first cause which is God himself but not as to election but all as tending to salvation And therefore that fell very advisedly from me when I said at least for the moving of God to elect where I place a vast difference between election and salvation God elects without respect had to faith works or use of means as to the decree but yet he saves with by and through faith works and use of means as in respect of the end 2 Thes 2.13 1 Pet. 1.2 You pack up these your fardles of exceptions thus Now if he do not hold that it is some cause by which men come to be more peculiarly interessed into the favour of God by believing then they are without believing why did he not rather say it must not be accounted any cause at all upon any account whatsoever But it is that which the Lord Christ hath said in Ioh. 16.27 which perswadeth me to be of that mind in that he hath said the Father himself loveth you because you have loved me and have believed that I came out from God and therefore If I should say that loving of Jesus Christ and believing in him were no cause at all by which we came to be chosen into the Fathers love I should sin against Christ in speaking contrary to his word But this is more then was in the Position and yet it is no more then truth Answ Sir now I will give you an account why I used that expression at least for the moving of God to elect my meaning was not that any man came to be interested into the first favour and love of God which is the good pleasure of his will immanent and eternal in himself more by believing then without believing For in election God lookt upon men as sinners enemies ungodly in their blood in a doleful plight and the objects of pity and compassion and not as on believers And therefore my words carried this sense that though there were no cause or motive at all why he should elect one rather then another because all were in an equally lost condition yet in the decree of election wherein there was a love unto and a purpose to save some he likewise decreed to save them by such means which in his wisdome he had ordained to be suitable for the attaining of the end so that salvation should have adequate causes for the effecting of it viz. faith works and use of means though election it self had none but singly and simply the love of God arising onely out of his own bosome And therefore it excluded causes as to election but did admit of causes as to the accomplishment of salvation For the rest of this paragraph of yours it trips up the heeles of all the former your seeming fair concessions and plainly discovers the secret guile and fraud of your heart For now you begin to speak plain enough saying If I should say believing were no cause at all by which we come to be chosen into the Fathers love I should sin against Christ Here indeed is plain dealing though all along before you have juggled with me and denyed all causes as to election And this indeed though you are not aware of it moâ—lders to nothing all your former exceptions which have still denied all causes motives c. And now you grant loving and believing to be causes and confirms every argument that I have raised and fortifies every of those absurdities that I have charged upon you as following upon your position to any of which you make not the least appearance of an answer But I tell you as before God in electing lookt upon men as in the corrupt mass and lumpe of perdition regarding nothing what they could be as of themselves for they must unavoidably be in a lost condition till by his own act transient flowing from that of Immanent in himself he made them believers by giving of them faith and all of this for the greater advance of his own free grace which he did not do to others For that place of Ioh. 16.27 brought to confirm their purpose I answer that the love of God hath a two-fold acception The first is amor benevolentiae which is the foundation and fountain of all the good his people have and receive t is the wombe that conceives and sends forth all the good things we do enjoy of which Ier. 31.3 I have loved thee with an everlasting love and so 1 Ioh. 4.10 we love him because he loved us first and of this no cause or reason can be rendred besides the good pleasure of his will The second is amor complacentiae when in time the Lord is delighted with the persons of those that he loved from eternity Ezek. 16.14 thy beauty was perfect through the comeliness I put upon thee Cant. 3.1 Behold thou art fair c. and thus the Lord crowns rewards and delights himself in those graces given to his elect ones and of this love of complacency is this text to be understood and not of the everlasting love spoken of Ier. 31.3 in electing of us before all time and whereof onely this controversie is And now gather up altogether and make up your accounts and see to what an excrescency of advantage your numerous exceptions against my arguments will amount unto and you shall find that the Summa totalis will be just o Hitherto have we fayled in that still river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God Psal 46.4 Psal 87.7 Rom. 11.33 and from whence all our springs flow viz. Gods electing of us to life eternal But now we are to lanch into that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that unfathomable gulfe of the wisdom and knowledge of God whose judgements are unsearchable and his waies past finding out viz. that of non-election or Reprobation Concerning which this Gentlemans Position did assert this viz. That God saw some men rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief yet haply not without the exact form of godliness but denying the power those he reprobated to everlasting destruction from the foundation of the world But In
Ioh. 10.26 Ioh. 12.39 40. Rom. 9.18 33. Rom. 11.7 8. 1 Pet. 2.8 Whereunto you say To which I answer first by distingushing upon his Major proposition and to enquire into his meaning therein now if he mean by Reprobation the decree of God before time distinct from Reprobation in time or Rom. 1.28 Gods giving them over to a reprobate mind which is the execution of the decree then I deny that sin and unbelief is the effect of it for God is so far from decreeing and appointing men to commit sin or that sin is an effect that cometh to pass by his decree and appointment that he doth not so much as tempt any man to sin as we may see Iam. 1.13 yea the Apostle Iames is so far from laying sin upon Gods decree as if that should be the cause that should produce such an effect as sin and unbelief that he saith v. 14. that every man is tempted when he is drawn away of his own lust and inticed and then v. 15. he saith when lust hath conceived it bringeth forth sin and sin when it is finished bringeth forth death By which we may see that the Apostle doth not make Gods decree the cause of sin but that indeed which is the cause which bringeth it forth is even lust Quem recitas meus est Sed male dum recitas incipit esse tuus Answ Here were matter for you to work upon indeed if I would own the Argument as it is by you thus mistated and truly I do not well know how this error crept in as you have thus translated my second Argument whether you lookt upon it with a squint eye or a wry neck and so had a mind to pervert both the words and sense of it but I am sure in mine own written paper which one alone and no more I ever had which is now in my custody where as your pamphlet hath it That which is the effect and consequent of Reprobation is and so should be That which is the efflux and consequent of Reprobation which one word of effect for efflux doth much vary the case and overthrows at least silenceth a great part if not all what you have said against it for I utterly disown the word effect I know sin followes negative Reprobation or non-election not as an effect the cause but as the consequent flowing from and following its antecedent and therefore I protest against the word as spurious and illegitimate and no brood of my brain But yet if cause may be lookt upon in the latitude it is many times used and taken for I see not but that in a large sense Reprobation may be said to be a cause of sin viz. causa sine qua non for had there not been such a negative reprobation or non-election as the mother sin at least actual sin had never been born nor brought into the world as the daughter Had God elected all at least had not God decreed to permit the sin of Adam and of his posterity he had not permitted it at all for whatsoever he purposed to do or permitted to be done in time the same he did decree before all time so to do or to permit to be done and if he had not permitted sin at all and so decreed to permit it sin would never have been but it must have been hindred But I insist not upon this but apply my self to that member of your distinction of Reprobation viz. that which is before all time Wherein for so much as is contended for by you in this paragraph if I may gratifie you in it I will sâ—bscribe unto it abating me but this that whereas you say lust is the cause of sin I say the devil combining with the corruption of mans nature which is originally and totally depraved and hath little of other proper and innate quality but to sin and so I come to the other member of your distinction which is worded thus Secondly if by Reprobation he meaneth the act or execution of Gods decree in time which is Gods giving up of people to their own hearts lust and to a Reprobate mind as aforesaid then also we find that Gods act in the first place is not the cause of mans sin but mans disobedience in the first place is the cause why God doth execute the same as his just and righteous judgement upon them for their continuance in sin c. as it is expressed in this Position as appeareth Psal 81.11 12. Rom. 1.22 23 24 25 26 27 28. and yet I do not deny but sin and unbelief may be the effect and consequence of Reprobation in this sense as mens delaying and not coming in while the door is open is the cause of the door being shut against them and the door being shut against them is the cause of their abiding still without Wherefore strive to enter in at the straite gate before the good man of the house be risen up and hath shut to the door Luke 13.24 25. While it is called to day lest any of you be hardned through the deceitfulness of sin Heb. 3.13 Answ I wonder why you should think I meant it of Reprobation in time which is not in the decree about which our controversie is but onely the execution of the decree though this be your practise yet I use no such extravagancies as to run from the question which is onely about Reprobation before all time and therefore this requiring no other answer I proceed to that where you hit the nail on the head for thus you write But I do partly believe that his meaning by reprobation in his argument is that which is generally held amongst them That Gods will and decree before any thing was brought forth in order or before man had any being is the onely and alone cause of Reprobation and so consequently of sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation and that no other fruits at any time can be brought forth by them notwithstanding all that they can do but that these things must unavoydably follow they being bound up thereunto by the decree of God and that which doth make me inclinable to believe that his meaning is so is because I find his Arguments tend much to the maintaining of such a thing Answ All this I stedfastly believe saving an ill-favoured expression that is interwoven viz. That being bound up thereunto by the decree of God which in my subsequent discourse shall be clearly refused But as though that in thus affirming I had maintained some formidable doctrine abhorrent to the Churches of the Saints he seems to bless himself from it thus But as I tender the honour and glory of God in the exaltation of his Psal 145.8 9. tender mercies over all his works and the purity of that truth and sincerity that is in himself together with his faithfulness in his upright and sincere dealings towards the sons of men and also when I think upon the excellency of
to say such a thing was not exprest in the position those who are acquainted not onely with the Anabaptists but likewise with the Arminians and Socinians of both which you have a tange know so much You say it is not expresly which doth admit that it is comprehended in it implicitly which is as much as I look for if it may be deduced thence Howsoever the best of it is that I have reum confitentem that rejecting the means of salvation continuing in sin and unbelief are in some measure the cause of Reprobation but where you have proved these to be the causes he that hath eyes to see let him see I am sure I cannot find it You conclude what you have to say against this Argument thus 3. To the Scripture which he quoteth out of Rom. 9.14 I have spoken to it already and to that in Rom. 11.33 34. it speaketh not at all to that particular business of Reprobation but of that great love and tender respect that God yet hath to Israel for their fathers sake as doth appear from ver 25. and so forward and of the great things which shall be done for them in the latter dayes when their deliverer shall come out of Sion and shall turn away ungodliness from Iacob which great work of God in respect of the manner of it is much mysterious inasmuch as there is so much of the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God that his judgements to us are unsearchable and his waies therein past finding out until the fulness of time shall come that the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea Isa 11.9 the Lord shal set again his hand the second time to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria and from Egypt and from Pathros and from Cush and from Elam and from Shiner and from Hamath and from the Islands of the sea c. ver 11. to the end But here I must break off from saying any more of these things at present for my leisure will not serve and it is likely this man will call this Millenarianism as he calleth the other Pelagianism Answ T is very right Sir you have spoken to that place of Rom. 9.14 but at so pitiful a rate and to so little purpose that the Reader will find it would have stood more with your credit if you had holden your peace And for that place of Rom. 11.33 34. howsoever it mentioneth not Reprobation yet it is a solemn conclusion of the things before delivered in the ninth tenth and eleventh Chapter For the Apostle having spoken of many difficult points as Election Reprobation rejection of the Jews calling of the Gentiles recalling of the Jews and having answered many questions prevented many cavils satisfied many doubts he now sets a period to this discourse with a sad exclamation O the depth c. whereby he signifies that he was driven into a wonderful admiration of the wisdom and knowledge of God in the administration of his love to the elect and displeasure to the Reprobate As a man wading into a deep river that is not fordable when he comes up to the neck and feels the water begins to heave him up and his feet to fail him cries out O the depth c. and goes back so the Apostle having waded so far as he could by the leading of the Spirit in those unfordable mysteries and being almost swallowed up with admiration at Gods administrations unable to pass any further into that bottomless gulf he silenceth himself because the Spirit ceaseth to give him further discoveries and resolves to enter upon no more questions but to admire the depth of the wisdom and knowledge of God whose mind i. e. his will and pleasure is no waies to be known of us but by the effects and consequents And I pray learned Sir did I alledge this place to any other purpose then that whereas you and other bold baiards will desperately undertake to assign reasons and external causes for those immanent actings of God we do with fear and reverence ascribe all to the good will and pleasure of God because by that and no way else hath he discovered himself in his word We do plainly see by the effect of it that it was his will so to be else had it not been and therefore we say it was appointed and ordained to be so by his good will and pleasure as for other reasons or causes we see and know none and surely Sir you limit this too narrowly straitning it to the recalling of the Jews which would the scope and purpose of the Apostle beare it yet would it serve sufficiently for my purpose neither should I make any scruple thereby of your turning Millenary for to that and a hundred more of other unstable doctrines are such men of your temper inclined unto being constant onely in inconstancy persisting in nothing but change But whereas you seem to put Millenarianism into the scales as to poise against Pelagianism Sir herein thâ—s far I shall discover my judgement upon them both that a man may be a Millenary I mean in so much as the reign of Christ upon the earth for a thousand years and yet with a charitable interpretation hold all the Articles of the Christian faith and so be eternally saved I know many learned good and gracious men have been of that judgement but for Pelagianism their doctrine is so gross in the whole lump yea so destructive to and inconsistent with the fundamentals of Christian Religion that to be a Pelagian in all their known profest tenets and to live and die so I do much doubt whether any one of them can be saved But what have I to do to judge another mans servant to his own Master he standeth or falleth Rom. 14.4 I have enough to do to attend my own calling but in the mean time to wait what great matters will flow from your wisdom in the rear of all I mean what you have to say to my fourth and last Argument which is as followeth Arg. 4. If the foresight of sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation be the causes of Reprobation then these absurdities will follow 1. That no child dying in infancy can possibly be Reprobated 2. Neither such Gentiles or Turks Indians and Savages that never head of Christ who never enjoyed the Gospel nor ever had the means tendred unto them for how can they believe in him of whom they never heard Rom. 10. and how can they reject that which was never tendred unto them as many nations in the world who are strangers from the life of God Ephes 2.12 3. If the foresight of sin should be the cause of Reprobation then the Elect should be equally lyable to the decree of Reprobation as the Reprobates themselves they all being alike in the corrupt mass and lump of Adams Transgression Rom.
do enjoy then their not knowing of Christ and believing in him as we do will never be charged upon them as sin For we do not find that the Lord Jesus doth require the use of a talent of them which never received any of him to use Answ Sir what faith infants have by which they are saved hath formerly been discussed It is such as is suitable to their infantile state differing not in nature and essence from those which are adult but onely in degrees of the discovery of it It hath been likewise acknowledged that the Gentiles who never heard of Christ unbelief will not be their sin for which they shall be condemned for they shall be judged not by the law of faith but by the law of works 2 Cor. 5.10 according to what evil they have done in the body and therefore I do affirm that the onely breach of the covenant of Grace is too narrow to be the adequate cause of damnation for many pagans who never heard of Christ and are under no covenant but that of works are condemned not for not believing in him of whom they never heard Rom. 10.14 nor for the breach of the covenant of Grace but for the breach of the covenant of works and without doubt uncleanness covetousnes sorcery lying Idolatry c. and many the like sins are the causes of their damnation They received a talent in Adam their primogenitor and he forfeited it both to himself and all his posterity whereof unless redemption be made by Jesus Christ they are utterly lost persons They have likewise received a general talent bestowed on them by Jesus Christ Ioh. 1.9 Rom. 1.20 who enlighteneth all that come into the world even enough to make them inexcusable And kind Sir if you revise your own position it is limited to the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel and therfore as you put the case your supposition utterly clasheth with what you have in your position But it is an easie matter for such intoxicated unsteady brains as yours to cross leggs now and then You absurdly conclude what you have to say in discharge of your self from the second absurdity thus But the Gentiles if they cannot notwithstanding all that they can do hear of Christ in the Doctrine of the Gospel in express words that they have a means from God by which they in their consciences may be accused or excused in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ Rom. 2.14 15 16. See also chap. 1 from ver 18. to the end also Psal 19. at the beginning by which means there is such a discovery of God from the creation of the world that the invisible things of him are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made so that they are without excuse but not onely in the far countries but even here in England where the Gospel is preached there are many that are strangers from the life of God I do freely grant the greater is their sin and as it is just with God to give those Gentiles over to a reprobate mind that did not like to retain the knowledge of God which they had or might have had by the things that are made so in like manner will the just and righteous judgement of God appear toward them which have Jesus Christ preached unto them in the Doctrine of the Gospel and they receive him not in suffering the mystery of iniquity to cloud and darken their understanding by the coming of the man of sin 2 Thes 2.9.10 11 12. Whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signes and lying wonders and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved and for this cause God shall send them strong delusion that they should believe a lye that they all might be damned who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness by which mystery of iniquity their understandings are so darkned and their minds blinded by which they look that all must be in a mystery removing mountains in a mystery the body of Christ in a mystery the Ascention of Christ into heaven and his second coming in a mystery the resurection out of the Grave or dust of the earth in a mystery to be out of the grave of sin and all these and many more such dark and cloudy conceits there are and will be more and more in men because they receive not the love of the truth even the teaching of Jesus Christ in these things that are written Ioh. 20.31 that they might believe that Jesus is the Christ and that believing they might have life through his name Answ Truly Sir your revolution of mysteries is a mystery to me And if in this whole paragraph your meaning be onely this that in the defect of the revelation of Jesus Christ Rom. 1. Psal 19.1 Rom. 2.14 yet that the Gentiles have so much made known unto them by the invisible things of God and the objective works of the creation and the reliques of the law of nature so far as to render them inexcusable I shall joyne with you in it and give my vote against them But if you have any secret reserve for indeed you are a pitiful soul that any of those herd of Goats the Gentiles I mean should have any possibility of salvation or hopes to be excused in the day of Judgement from receiving of the just reward of all their iniquities Joh. 15.5 Joh. 14.6 I do then abominate any such conceit Without Christ we can do nothing he is the way the truth and the life and none cometh to the Father but by him neither is there salvation in any other nor none other name under heaven given among men whereby they can be saved If it should be otherwise then farewel the prerogative of the Jew above the Gentile of the Christian Church above the Pagans If God may have his Church his converts his right worshippers his beloved and saved ones even amidst the blindness and darkness of Gentilism without the knowledge of Christ and all divine revelation of Gods wil in his word then let 's bid adieu to al Scripture to all religion to all profession but alas what are such opinions as those but like sick mens dreams or rather mad mens ravings But I pray Sir tell me in good earnest what your meaning is by those words you thus write viz. The Gentiles if they cannot notwithstanding all that they can do hear of Christ c. which as the words import imply an abominable slander against the majesty of God as though the Gentiles had a desire and thereupon did endeavour to know and learn the mind of Christ but being impeded by a more supreme power were not able to compass their desires Sir learn to be more modest and reverent in treating of such divine things Alas so far are the heathens for
run out as leaking vessels and 2 Tim. 2.21 purge themselves from error sin and uncleanness shall be vessels unto honour sanctified and meet for the Masters use and prepared unto every good work And we do find in the Scripture that all those actings of God in a way of mercy in order to the everlasting good of his creature come from him with abundance of willingness freeness and delight for he is a God that delighteth in mercy Mich. 7.18 Answ Sir you onely speak here of Gods not consining himself to any subordinate power but you prosecute not the point as it is laid to your charge We with the Sctiptures do affirm Gods absolute purpose or the good pleasure of his most holy will is the alone cause of non-election or Reprobation and not the rejecting of the means to wit the free tenders of Christ in the Gospel and the continuing in sin and unbelief are not the causes as you assert pretending that if these be not assigned causes then God would be unjust or unmerciful to the creature hereupon we say that if God may not do with his creature what seems best to him in his own eyes without rendring a reason of his actings but that his attributes must be called into question this is to limit and confine the infinite soveraignty that God hath over all the creation and to suffer worms and dust to controll majesty But to this Sir hitherto you have said nothing To what you say of that place 2 Tim. 2.21 that it is the good will and pleasure of our God whosoever they be that delight to embrace the means of salvation and purge themselves from error sin and uncleaneness shall be vessels unto honour is very true and good in that sense it was intended by the Spirit of God but neither true nor good in that sense it is by you applied and made use of For first of all you suppose that it is in their own power to purge themselves from error sin and uncleanness whereas this is Gods peculiar work to purge us from our sins and purely to purge away our dross and to wash us with clean water and to turn us to himself and then we shall be sure to be turned all our strength to performe such a taske is else altogether insufficient Your second couchant error here is that you conceive this purging of themselves will hereby make them vessels of honour but I say this their purging was no cause at all of their being vessels of honour but it was onely a means of the discovery of it wherein they might have comfort and consolation Before even from all eternity by that decree of election they were out of that lump of perdition made vessels unto honour or vessels of mercy which God had afore prepared unto glory but when the times of refreshing come Rom. 9.21.23 Gal. 1.16 Heb. 9.14 and that the Lord is pleased to reveal his son in them and that such his secret decree comes to be put in execution in time by God his giving of faith and repentance and purging their consciences from dead dead works to serve the living God then they shall be vessels unto honour unto their own comfort and to the good example of others Such a manner of speech there is Ioh. 5.8 Herein is my father glorified that ye bear much fruit so shall ye be my Disciples Now they were his Disciples before but the meaning is that by bearing of fruit they should approve themselves both to their own consciences and to the world besides that they were the Disciples of Christ Neither is that which follows altogether so sound where you write But on the other hand in respect of what he doth in the making forth of his justice in the punishment of his creature for sin and impenitency he doth it not until he is provoked thereunto even 2 Chron. 36.16 untill there is no remedy for the Lord is Psal 19.1 and 145.8 slow to anger and of great mercy and hath Ezek. 33.11 no pleasure in the death of the wicked And therefore although that the embracing of the means repenting and believing in Jesus Christ be no procuring ground or cause of any the least mercies we do enjoy yet the continuing in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation is a procuring of punishment see Ier. 2.17 Hast thou not procured this unto thy self in that thou hast forsaken the Lord thy God when he led thee by the way also ch 4.18 thy way and thy doings hath procured these things unto thee this is thy wickedness because it reacheth unto thine heart Answ Sir though it be very true that the continuing in sin and unbelief and the rejecting of the means of salvation be the procuring cause of punishment in time but not the cause of the decree of negative reprobation before time Yet where you say that God doth not make forth his justice in punishing until he be provoked Sir I cannot allow you so much to take this universally For tell me if you can how those infants had provoked God in the general deluge Gen. 7. when they were swept away with the rest of the wicked world or those infants in the combustion of Sodom Gen. 19. how had they communicated in pride fulness of bread and idleness with the rest of the citizens or what confederacy was there in those infants in the rebellion of Corah Numb 16. that they descended likewise with their fathers into the pit or how had those women been a provocation whose wombes were shut in the case of Abimelech Gen. 20. 2 Sam. 24.17 or those sheep the people of Israel what had they done when they suffered that havock by the pestilence when seventy thousand men were destroyed No Sir in many cases there is no visible provocation besides the original depravation of corrupt nature which through the want of original righteousness doth justly deserve wrath and punishment In some it is not for any sin either in them or their Parents but that the works of God should be made manifest in them Joh. 9.3 But for other cases take the rest and make the most of them And now to fill up your pamphlet and for want of better stuffe you obtrude upon us a leathern tale of your own observation and this it is And I can yet remember when I have been a hearer of these men which have taken unto themselves the title of Clergy as if they onely were the heritage of the Lord and none besides them speak much to this purpose that God was abundantly more prone to shew mercy than to execute wrath and have earnestly prest their hearers to the use of means calling upon them to be careful to come to Church as they call it and to heare sermons saying thou dost not know when Gods time is therefore give attendance to the means If thou art careless in coming and wilt come but now and then thou mayest be
being kinds of spiritual death and a degree of eternal death and so Adam was spiritually dead whiles he lived as the damned are said to live in death 1. Whether the scope of the Apostle in 1 Cor. 15. from v. 35. to ver 51. be not onely to shew with what manner of bodies we shall arise viz. incorruptible glorious powerful and spiritual but no mention at all either of natural or spiritual death 2. Whether that in that treatise of the resurrection he doth not prove by an Antithesis that as we have our animal or natural life from the first Adam by a natural generation so we have our spiritual life from the second Adam Jesus Christ by a spiritual regeneration but that the order and manner thereof is this we have and enjoy first our natural life by propagation but our spiritual life afterwards by infusion of the spirit 1. Whether the Almighty power of God is not as much exerted in raising of a sinner from the death of sin unto the life of righteousness as it was either in the bringing of Christ from the dead as Eph. 1.20 or in the raising of the body of dead Lazarus from the grave 2. Whether that in both those resurrections viz. either to a spiritual life or to a natural life such who are so raised are not alike passive in their resurection contributing nothing of themselves as to their resurrection 3. Whether that such as do ascribe a liberty to the will for the choosing of good when it is tendered in the outward proposalls of the Gospel do not attribute too much of power and strength and sufficiency to themselves contrary to these places 2 Cor. 3.5 Phil. 2.13 1. Whether God the Father had any other end or designe in giving of or sending his son into the world but onely that he should give eternal life to as many as were given to him of the Father Ioh. 17.2 who were not every mothers son in the world but a peculiar people Tit. 2.14 and to those he shewed his love being his own Ioh. 13.1 and for those he laid down his life Ioh. 15.13 and unto those did he manifest his fathers name Ioh. 17.6 and for those he prayed Ioh. 17.9 and for their sakes was he stricken Isa 53.1 and for their sakes did he sanctifie himself Ioh. 17.19 1. Whether any other than the elect can in any warrantable construction be understood under the term of this word world in these places following viz. Rom. 11.12 2 Cor. 5.19 1 Ioh. 4.14 Ioh. 1.29 Ioh. 3.16 17. Ioh. 4.42 Ioh. 6.33 51. 2. Whether can be understood any other than the reprobate of the world in these places following viz. Ioh. 14.17 22. Ioh. 15.18 19. and 16.20 23. and 17.9 14 25. 1 Cor. 11.32 2 Pet. 2.2 5. 1 Ioh. 3.11 13. 3. Whether the flesh of Christ when dead or Lazarus in the grave were able to resist the omnipotent power of God when either Christ was quickened by the spirit 1 Pet. 3.11 or when the word of command was spoken Lazarus come forth Ioh. 11.43 1. Whether the Scriptures by way of allusion do not make an alike proportion between the necessity of the putting forth an omnipotent power which cannot be resisted Rom. 9.19 in the converting of a sinner unto God or giving them to believe Phil. 1.29 and the raising of one from a natural death to a natural life See Eph. 1.19 20. Rom. 6.4 13. and 8.11 and 11.15 1. Pet. 1.21 2. Whether cannot Omnipotency which said at first let there be light and there was light and gave a creature being out of nothing say as well let there be a will unto conversion and there shall be such a will and by an invincible perswasion remove all reluctancies and oppositions in the will 3. Whether whatsoever God doth or permitteth to be done in time he did not decree to do or permit to be done in the same manner measure and circumstances of time place and persons as they are done before all time 4. Whether that upon a supposition that Peter Paul Iames Iohn c. are absolutely and actually justified and saved in time did not God decree absolutely and actually to justifie and save them before all time 1. Whether those words in the Gospel He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned was not a secret kept hid from the Angels themselves especially for the clear manifestation of it untill that Christ was manifested in the flesh 2. Whether those words are not held forth onely as a Gospel-declaration how a man may know himself capacitated for salvation viz. by believing and that it is no wayes mentioned as to be the substance of the decrees of God though whatsoever therein comes to pass was in reality decreed by God 3. Whether the foreappointing or determining of men to a certain end be not the substance of Predestination 4. Whether all men be not foreappointed or predestinated to a certain end 5. Whether there be any such decrees to be found in the whole Scripture he that believeth shall be elected or he that believeth not shall be reprobated 6. Whether believing be not the effect or part of the execution of the decree of election from eternity and not a cause or a condition drawing after it the decree of election 7. Whether not believing rejecting of the means of salvation and continuing in sin and unbelief be not faults voluntarily proceeding out of the wicked hearts of men who are reprobated from eternity not foreseen as causes of their negative reprobation but onely as causes of their positive reprobation or judicial condemnation 8. Whether that upon a supposition that there were no other decrees of election and non-election then this He that believeth shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned might it not so come to pass there intervening no irresistible power of God but man left to the supposed liberty of his own will that either no man might be saved or else that no man might be damned 1. Whether God may not in righteousness judge such to blindness who have put out their own eyes 2. Whether God may not in righteousness expect a return of that talent to him which he at first committed to man and if man hath misimployed it or squandred it away may not God in righteousness judge and condemn man for it 3. Whether man in the state of innocency had not a power to do whatsoever God did require of him 4. Whether that power was not onely given to Adam himself but likewise in him to all his posterity had they continued in obedience to the command of God 5. Whether Adam lost not that power both to himself and all his posterity by eating of the forbidden fruit and therefore it is said that in him we have all sinned Rom. 5.18 19. 6. Whether are not the Saints carried on to believe by the Fathers drawing of them to Jesus Christ Iohn 6.44 yet such a