so taken but for cleansing and therefore you cannot maintain that Christ sanctified and cleansed himself by his blood unless you hold that he did as the Priests under the Law who offered first for themselves and then for the people and then you must hold also that he as they had sin of his own and then you will be found directly against Gods word Heb. 7.27 for he was without sin Fifthly my fifth mistake you say is That I am not converted nor acquainted with the power of God in Scripture but what if it shall appear at the last day that I am converted and do know the power of God in the Scriptures aright then Mr. Hobson will be mistaken and so much until then for that mistake My Sixth mistake you say is my confining my judgment of Gods essential will to his revealed will in his word and actions for that 's your meaning in fewer words But I do not see how you can make it appear to be a mistake but a sound truth for if I must not judge that God is grieved and troubled and angry when he saith he is how then shall I know and be assured he loves me when he saith he doth If I must not believe his meaning to be according to his saying how then shall I know that he means believers shall be saved since he doth but say so And though his general declaration in his word be that good and holy men shall be saved and wicked damned yet according to your fond conceits he means to save the wicked and condemn the just In the next place page 89 you come you say to answer briefly to my queries and absurdities and so I think you do briefly answer them indeed and so brief as that 't is next unto none if not worse then none for you refer me unto your false positions formerly laid down by you and therefore I will make no reply to you in this at all as deserving none my 14 Queries and 10 Absurdities standing yet in full force I shall therefore here set them down again in the conclusion of this work partly that the Reader may judge how well you have quitted your self in your answer and partly because you have fraudulently recited them presenting them to the Reader in as ugly a dress as you could There remains yet onely one thing more to be done that is to answer to your Absurdities which you say will necessarily flow from my judgement 1. Absur. The first is you say I deny the prerogative of God as if he had not power to do with his own as seemeth good to him I Answer it is false I deny him not any prerogative over his creature which he doth challenge for he may do with us as the potter with the clay i.e. advance some to places of honour in the house and dash othersome in pieces or make them vessels of dishonour but that is if they be marred in his hands and will not make vessels of honour not else he were an unwise potter that would challenge that priviledge over his clay for to dash it in pieces when 't is made as he would have it see Jer. 18. 2. Absur. Secondly you say I do as much as give Christ the lie because he saith He had finished the work that the Father gave him to do I Answer in this you shew much ignorance for men are not saved by Christs death onely but by faith therein and obedience thereunto but this hath been more fully handled already by me to which I refer you 3. Absur. Thirdly you say I do exceedingly undervalue God and the riches of his grace and love c. I Answer you mistake now one person for another for this is to be meant of your self that pinfold the grace of God into a narrow compass whenas I extend it unto all the world and all generations 4. Absur. Fourthly you say I lay injustice upon God because I say he condemns some for whom Christ died I Answer It were injustice to condemn them if Christ did not die for them for not believing on Christ there is great reason to condemn them if Christ died for them and yet they refuse him and their own salvation notwithstanding 5. Absur. Fifthly you say I change the nature of causes putting the effect before the cause I Answer Here again you mistake me for your self for I have already proved 't is you put the effect before the cause 6. Absur. Sixthly you say I strike down the great design of God c. I Answer I maintain his design I hope in his saving of good and Godly men and reprobating obstinate and wilfull sinners other Election and Reprobation I know none from the holy Scriptures if you do it may look grim upon you perhaps in the day of account 7. Absur. Seventhly you say My opinion destroyes it self c. I Answer See what confidence will do poor man because you have not truth on your side you are fain to make up your arguments with confidence and repetitions how often have we had this that Christ hath satisfied for the sins of the Elect when as he hath in your sence satisfied for no mans sins that is so as that they are pardoned without any condition in them see Matth. 6.14 You make a stir about the sin of unbelief that Christ hath satisfied for that I deny not but that he hath satisfied for that as much as for any other that is to speak plainly he hath done so much for all sins and for all mens sins that if they continue not in unbelief and hardness of heart they may have remission of sins one as freely as another other satisfaction hath he made none for any persons whatsoever as hath been already proved Now dear friend I beseech you for Christ Jesus sake read my Book without prejudice and be not wedded to your own opinion for it is most certainly a rotten foundation and will deceive you at last I beseech you search the Scriptures and beg of God to give you light that your poor soul may not be deceived nor God so sadly dishonoured or abused by bringing him and his eminent acts of love grace power and justice under the controwle of your low and Novel opinions For the prevention of which it shall be the dayly prayer of him who in sincerity can say He is a real lover of your soul William Pedelsden FINIS FOrasmmuch as there be many persons that reading Mr. Hobsons Book and my short Answer to it may yet remaine unsatisfied and be in doubt which of us is in the truth in the points now in controversie I thought it expedient for the benefit of all as well as of Mr. Hobson to take some pains about the clearing up of the riches of Gods love to all mankind his desires to save them that yet wilfully perish the way and manner of saving them and how Election and Reprobation standeth and on what they do depend and how the most
was never creature heard say Create me renew me O Lord Here one is heard crave Psal. 51. Create in me a clean heart O God and renew a right Spirit within me There it was never said to the Creature Make thy self Here 't is said Make you a new heart and a new spirit for why will you die Ezek. 18.31 Jer. 4.4 Ephes. 5.14 There was never any Creature blamed for not being made nor reproved for being as it is but Here to keep on the old man and not to put on the new is counted a notorious fault in them that profess Christ Jesus and the Gospel Do but consider these things and see if it be safe to compare the first Creation with the second for I conceive the mistaking of these things doth occasion many other absurdities in your self and others I finde nothing more until I come to your eighth particular page 74. but what hath been already answered enough You have indeed many particulars to prove that which I do not deny i.e. that the highest improvements of Nature without the help of Grace will not enable a man to convert or become a new creature what need all this do I say a man may convert without the help of grace But this indeed I say With the help of Grace men may but most do not Some refusing it others receiving it in vain Now I come to your eighth Position 8. That it is Gods minde and way and then of necessity in must be so for the advancement of his grace and the accomplishment of faith in the hearts of his own that this Gospel is to be presented or discovered unto all without exemption as to the declaration it self unto which you say you will say little the thing being so clear How now what a bold attempt do you make upon the wisdom and holiness of God what must the death of Christ and remission of sins for that 's the Gospel be preacht unto all for the sake onely of some If there be not really remission of sins for all men to be had in Christ then they which preach remission unto all as Christ commands his Apostles to do Luke 24.47 will be found to preach an untruth to most for the sake of some Alas for you these are low and base thoughts of God what do you judge the Almighty to have no better way to bring about his designs but by lies or by unreasonableness what if Gods design had been as you say 't is to work faith onely in some few and in them to work it certainly and unavoydably could not he thinke you have provided a better way to work this faith then by telling all men he would have them all repent believe and be saved c. telling them that he gave his Son to die for them all and is unwilling that any of them should perish Surely it would be a wilde trick and hypocritical if Mr. Hobson should send his servants to all the inhabitants in the Parts where he lives to invite them with great earnestness unto his feast and when they come there to put most of them back saying That he invited all onely for the sake of some and this he did for the magnifying of his grace would not any man think that either Mr. Hobson was distracted or else he was desperately full of guile and hypocrisie and such actions would magnifie his folly and wickedness not his grace Might not Mr. Hobson with less deceit and more honestie have sent some private and particular invitations to those particular persons he intended yea certainly he would if he were to make such invitations and I think he would scorne to invite all and intend onely some with what face then can he affirm that of the ever-blessed God which he hateth in man Surely God will not do that himself which he cannot indure and hath forbidden in man And whatever Mr. Hobson or any others say the Almighty will be found at the great day of account to have invited none but such as he heartily and really intended salvation unto had they been pleased to accept and not made light of it Matth. 22.5 In the next place you pretend to answer to this Objection Object If the power of believing be solely of God how can he justly condemn man for not believing seeing the power is not in them but in God I must needs tell you in plain English that your answer to this Objection is not onely impertinent but vile And while you devise new tricks and shifts to clear up the justice of God as you say you do absolutely deny the plain Scripture for say you page 77. God doth condemn no man for not expressing of a power to believe but for exercising a power to reject Christ when the Scripture saith He that believeth not is damned because he believeth not c. Joh. 3.18 and Christ saith unlesse ye believe that I am he ye shall dye in your sins But you say this is the declarative cause not the meritorious cause what a sordid saying is this what will God declare one cause and proceed by another Their not believing you say is the declarative cause but that is not the cause that God will go upon you say This is indeed according to what you have already said of him that he declares and proclaims one thing and means another I grant that God condemns men for rejecting grace so doth he also for not improving of that which they are possest withal Matth. 25.29 30. And he shall render vengeance not onely to those that rejected and did despite unto the Spirit of grace but also unto those that know not God and that have not obeyed the Gospel of Jesus Christ 2 Thess. 1.8 In the next place page 79 you pretend to discover my mistakes as you say which is the cause of my stumbling My first mistake you say is my measuring mans ability by Gods power or authority as when God saith Do this and you shall live c. this say you doth only imply Gods authority not mans ability I will shew you your weakness herein if you will but grant me that God doth all things wisely soberly and discreetly Judge now would it be soberly and wisely done for a King to say to an impotent man Do this impossible thing and I will reward you richly and if you do not I 'll hang you If no earthly King will command but where there is power to obey much more will not the King of heaven And if this were a way for a King to manifest his power by over his impotent Subjects yet would it be no way to magnifie his grace and favour towards them and that seems rather to be Gods design in the Gospel You must know and understand that God will and doth set forth his power and his justice in no other way then may well stand with the glory of his grace and mercy also 2. My second mistake you say is my not distinguishing
of causes and I say your mistake is the not understanding of causes I do allow of as many distinctions of causes as the Scripture doth but I am not so simple as to make several causes of one thing to be diametrially opposed against each other as ye do but consentaneous to one another so that Gods declared cause is adequate to his essential meritorious or final causes My third mstake as you say is my not understanding the extent of the word all and the word world and in this you make a great puther and a stir to prove that the word World is taken many times for lesse then all Who knows not that but 't is sometimes taken for all as you and all men confess and in this case touching the death of Christ I am certainly assured 't is meant all as I have already evinced from John 12.47 Nay moreover you grant it for you also affirm that he dyed for all and therefore when you except against my large extending the word world it may be conceived you are a little out of your self if not I am sure ye are out of the truth For what man that is compos mentis would first assert that Christ died for all and for the world and then except against the places that prove it as not extending unto all because sometimes those terms in other cases extend not to all I hope you will see your folly and be ashamed 4. My fourth mistake you say is my not understanding Ezek. 33.11 where the Lord saith As I live I delight not in the death of a sinner For from this place I conclude you say all sinners and so indeed I do yea the worst and perishing sinners and so the text saith expresly Ezek. 18 ult. I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth Who told you that God makes three sorts of sinners and one of them he calls sinners in a Gospel-sence have you eaten of the forbidden fruit if not how come you to know more then is written and more then is true that some sins and sinners are greater then others I do not deny but to divide sinners into so many sorts that exclude the greatest part of them from Gods desire of salvation to them I allow not but detest it as abominable I am sure God tells us no such thing in his word as that he would save onely sinners in a Gospel-sence But he either saith Sinners indefinitely or else particuliarly of such sinners as Mr. Hobsons wisdom excludeth as these Scriptures will abundantly testifie Jer. 25.3 unto 8. Jer. 35.12 unto 17. Chap. 29.19 Chap. 18.11 12 Chap. 6.16 17. Chap. 13.11 Isa. 48. 17 18 19. Where you may see he endeavoured with all earnestness even unto admiration to save not onely those that did accept but those also that refused Salvation and perished That all this was done out of true compassion to them doth appear 2 Chro. 36.14 15 16. That all this also was not a bare outward and helpless means which God used by his Prophets but a most efficacious powerful and prevailing means the Spirit of God going with the word of the Prophet and yet not received doth most manifestly appear in that remarkable place of Zechariah 7.11 12 13. as also Act. 7.51 This is yet farther confirmed and illustrated by the ever blessed Son of God in his most pathetical expressions of sorrow and grieffor and the shedding of tears over the miserable sons and daughters of Jerusalem who had unavoidably and full sore against his blessed will brought themselves into an irrecoverable estate by not knowing the time of their visitation when they were most gently allured and earnestly called upon it being now too late to reverse the Decree that was gone out against them I say yet did our Saviour weep for them Luke 19.41 and weeping he most affectionately breatheth forth this most blessed wish and desire for them O that thou hadst known in this thy day the things that belong to thy peace c. in which desire he is like unto God his father See Deut. 5.29 Chap. 32.29 Psal. 81.13 Isa. 48.18 Let all this be well weighed without prejudice and see then if you you cannot understand our Saviour as he speaks that is That he came not to call the righteous that is righteous indeed but sinners to repentance that is sinners indeed his designe into the world being more to amend that which was amiss to seek that that was lost and heal that that was sick then to those that were already in a good way and in a saveable condition that had not need of a Physitian Mat. 9.12 Mark 2.17 Whoever do but mark upon what occasion our Lord here speaketh these words they may with ease understand that he means worse sinners then Mr. Hobsons Gospel-sinners for our Saviour being at meat with Publicans and sinners in Levi's house the Scribes and Pharisees complain of it thinking 'tis like as Mr. Hobson doth that he was sent onely to the precise and Gospel-sinners which when our Lord perceived he said unto them They that are whole have not need of the Physitian but they that are sick I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance Next you say I mistake in putting one person for another as in Heb. 10.29 where the text saith Of how much sorer punishment suppose ye shall he be thought worthy who hath troden under foot the Son of God and hath counted the blood of the Covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing c. Now you say my mistake is That I take the word he for the party that treads the blood of Christ under foot whenas 't is meant if all were true as you say of Christ himself that was sanctified This fond and I think your own interpretation of this place is not onely against all the judicious learned but against the scope of the Apostle which is both to aggravate the punishment and the sin of the person here spoken of who trampled under his foot the blood of Christ which he aggravates by rehearsing the vertue of it and what it had done for him to wit sanctified him from his sins which the party wickedly how slighted and rejected though formerly had imbraced it and been sanctified by it and this right well agreeth with Saint Peter 2 Pet. 1.9 2.20 21 22. I am still filled with amazement that you should be so void of reason as to interperet Scripture after such a heedless manner as to confront all wise and learned men yea and the truth also Do you think it would aggravate the sin of the sinner to tell him that he hath trampled under his foot that blood which he had no benefit nor sanctification by but that blood by which Christ was sanctified or do you think that Christ needed to be sanctified by his own blood himself I am well aware that sanctification is sometimes taken for setting apart but sanctification by Christs blood is never
and to him praying to give repentance to him repenting to instill faith and so to justifie him being justified by faith Now think not that the Spirit is present in the preaching of the Law to an unregenerate man to give him strength to new obedience presently because it is present then to convince and condemn his wickedness The spirit is not present in the preaching of the Gospel to a man yet not penitent to work in him peace joy love though it be present to work these in the believer for if it should work these in him before faith it should work contrary to the word The Summe of all is this The Spirit of God is annexed to his word for such gifts and operations as to which the hearer is a fit disposed subject there is an order in the divine working wherein there are things antecedent preparatives to things subsequent which antecedents if they found no place and were not admitted the subsequent are then suspended Hence is there so frequent and just separation of the Spirit from the word by the great Pastor of our souls who walketh in the midst of the Churches Thus much for the declaration of this point for confirmation of it I alledge all the Elogia of the word of God as Psal. 19. The Law of the Lord is perfect converting the soul c. Heb. 4.12 The Word of God is quick and powerful Joh. 17.17 Sanctifie them by thy truth thy word is the truth c. But that calling is the same to them that obey not as to them that obey I shall urge these two places more Mat. 22.14 Many are called but few are chosen here many are distributed into two sorts some that are called and not chosen some that are called and also chosen for these few chosen are a part of those many called so that the whole many are put under one and the same calling which calling is not by the outward word alone for from that calling arise none chosen therefore the calling was by the word and spirit common to both and the few chosen excelled not in calling but in something else to wit in obeying the calling to come when others refused or in coming worthily in a wedding garment according to the parable The other place is Matth. 12.41 The men of Nineveh shall rise up in judgement with this Generation and shall condemn it c. from whence I reason thus if Jonas preacht to the Ninivites without the spirit how did they repent if Jesus preacht without the same spirit how is he greater then Jonas nay how is he equal in the power of preaching and if they that disobey be not equally called with them that obey how can these rise up in judgment against them when their answer is ready We had not the same calling with you ours differed tote genere you were partakers of an heavenly calling we but of an earthly you were called by the voice of God speaking to your hearts we but by the bare voyce of men speaking to the ear If God had moved and excited us as much as he did you we would have done as well as you But God will not give occasion for them thus to speak for he will so effectually provide for all them that perish that they shall have no excuse Rom. 1.20 2.1 Therefore I conclude that the distinction of outward and inward of effectual and ineffectual calling are vain for these reasons also First because it giveth unworthily the name of calling to the bare outward preaching of the word which may be a commanding but not a calling a commanding as of the Law but not a calling as of the Gospel seeing that the word of the New Covenant comes to call men to repentance and faith for their recovery after notice taken of their impotency to rise again of themselves It seems an insulting mock and not a call to say to sinners Turne repent believe and live unless there be some grace prepared for them whereby they may be able to repent and believe Secondly because it attributeth the effect of obeying the calling to the kinde of calling it self as onely to one cause to wit the operation of the Spirit as if many causes did not concur to produce one effect and as if obedience to the calling of God were not an act of the will of man under the ayd of the Spirit of God as if the aid of the Spirit were never refused nor the grace of God never received in vain For though God be Almighty and able to draw all second causes unto his part and side yet he doth not use to disturbe or cross the nature of causes nor the order of things which himself hath established Thirdly because this distinction makes Gods Covenant to differ from all Covenants in humane affaires I mean even that which is essential to a Covenant for in a Covenant each party hath something to perform but by this distinction God is supposed both to provide infallibly to have the conditions fulfilled and also to fulfil his own promises whereas all that he undertakes for us is to make the conditions possible and not to be wanting in his help so far as is needful for us CHAP. VI Concerning the question of two equally called VVHen two persons are equally called and one converteth and the other no these both being supposed possible who is it that puts the difference God or man I answer that 't is man that puts the difference and not God I ground this answer first upon the righteous judgement of God Because God judgeth not his own acts but the acts of men secondly because every righteous judge findes a difference and doth not make any between party and party Who put the difference between the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel but themselves both alike instituted in religion by their father God a true witness testified of Abels gift as better then Cains Heb. 11.4 Who put the difference between Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar as to their nature both were men as to their dignity both were Kings as to their cause both held the people of God in captivity as to their punishment both were mildly admonished by chastisements what then occasioned their different ends nothing else but that one of them sensible of Gods hand groaned under the memory of his own iniquity the other by his own free will fought against the most merciful verity of God Suppose two persons be equally tempted by the beauty of one-fair body whereof one yields to the temptation the other perseveres what he was before what else appears in these but that onely that one would and the other would not loose his chastity The difference between the Ninevites repenting at the preaching of Jonas and of the Jews not repenting at the preaching of a greater then Jonas if God put it how shall they rise up in judgement and condemn these But that which makes it so horrible to pious ears to say a man makes