Fate which I could not withstand and if I have done amiss I deserve pity from you rather than blame tho I know if your Doctrine be true neither your Pity nor Prayers will do me any good unless they were able to make a change in God's absolute Decree for there cannot one Soul be saved which is ordained to Hell nor one Soul be cast away which is appointed to Heaven and so your Pity and Prayers may as well be spared as spent to no puroose And Reader if thou beest one that art learned 't is likely thou wilt think this Discourse is a home-spun Piece Why truly I am just of your mind I think the same and so there is no danger we should fall out and by this let thee know it was designed for them that love to have it so and written for the use of those that neither could nor did expect any Rhetorical Flourishes or School-Distinctions from me but only plain Truths They knew that as I was ignorant of School Phrases so I was clogged with worldly Business and had neither learning nor time to dress up my Lines with Wit and Eloquence neither doth Truth stand in need of gingling Flourishes or outward Bedaubing to make it more renowned in the World it being best seen in its naked plainness And Reader if thou art a Critick as this is a peevish and critical Age or so highly conceited that thou disdainest to look any farther all that I shall say to thee is this It will not hurt you if you can but let it alone I never commanded you neither do I care whether you read it or not and if you read it and think your time and pains ill bestowed blame your self for meddling with that you had nothing to do with I know that all courteous and impartial Readers and especially those that have desired this will esteem it as much as I desire they should Reader I will keep thee out no longer pray walk in and if you like your poor entertainment you are heartily welcome fall to and much good may it do you Vale. June 30. 1700. ZACH. STANTON NB. Pray correct the following Fault with thy Pen before thou goest on Page 35. line 12. Philadelphus is to begin with these words What God foresees c. The last line but one of the same page blot out Phil. The Love of God to all Mankind Asserted and Vindicated By way of Dialogue between Martha and Philadelphus c. Martha WEll met Philadelphus you are walking and viewing the Fields Philadelphus Yes and the more I view the more my heart is drawn forth to bless and admire our good and gracious God who hath not left himself without witness filling our hearts with joy and gladness and though we have almost spent the Fruits of the last year yet is the Lord preparing for us against another how doth the Hills and Vallies abound with Corn and Grass burdned Ears with plenty They rejoyce and clap their hands and loudly proclaim that the Lord is good to all and his tender Mercies are over all his Works Mar. Why is your heart so affected with the Creature or any goodness that is in them Phil. No not so much as with the good God that sends them yet I cannot but admire that the glorious Majesty of Heaven and Earth should have any regard to us worthless Worms thus to mind us with the Eyes of his Providence when we are unmindful of him Mar. Why doubtless it is for the sake of his Elect People that the Nation injoys such Mercies otherwise the Lord would quickly turn this fruitful Land into barrenness yea overthrow it as once he did Sodom and Gomorrah Phil. Although I do not question but next unto Jesus who is said to bear up the Pillars of the Earth the Godly are the Pillars of a Nation they stay just deserved Judgments God Almighty would make short work in the World bring all to its first Nothing if it was not for the Godly which as you say are as so many Lots in Sodom that preserve from such an overthrow yet surely God hath some gracious ends and design in giving such Temporal Mercies to the worst of Men even that his Goodness and Mercy might lead them to Repentance Mar. Truly all these outward and temporal Mercies and Blessings which the worst of Men injoy are but like Crumbs which the Master of a Family throws to the Dogs or given with no other intent than Men give good Pasture to their Cattel to fit them the sooner for Slaughter The prosperity of fools destroy them says Solomon that is it shall be the means of heightning their Lusts and thereby fitting them for Destruction Phil. As is your Name so are you Martha is your Name and bitter are your words Come sit you down here by me under this Shade and let us spend one hour in Discourse together if your occasion will permit Mar. I am content Phil. Truly I did not think till I heard it out of your own Mouth that any could entertain such harsh and unworthy suspicions of the God of Love as if his Mercies to any were designed on purpose to multiply their guilt or to heighten their eternal Damnation No Martha God hath more noble and worthy Ends and Designs than such you spake of God is Love and he hath no pleasure in the ruin of his Creatures If their Prosperity destroy them if his Mercies which should lead them to Repentance and have been a powerful means to ingage their hearts to love the Lord any ways heighten their guilt and thereby fit them for Destruction 't is not the effect of God's goodness but rather of their obstinate wickedness their abusing his Goodness and turning his Grace into Wantonness and not into Thankfulness this is that which kindles the wrath of God as 2 Chron. 32. 25. But Hezekiah rendred not again according to the Mercies c therefore wrath was upon him c. and for this cause was it that the Heathens were given up to vile affections But pray tell me do not all Men in the World stand bound to be thankful to God for outward Mercies Mar. Yes doubtless they do Phil. But how can any Man look upon himself any ways obliged to be thankful to God for good things given with such hard intentions even to make his Condemnation so much the greater Had Amasa any cause to thank Joab for taking him friendly by the Beard to kiss him when his intent was to stab him to the heart And as little cause have any to be thankful to God for Temporal Injoyments when all is made as a Gin and a Trap for their Souls and God intends nothing but evil to them and a fuller Cup of wrath to come If this be a truth how can the bountifulness and long-suffering of God be said to lead Men to Repentance which is the Apostle's Doctrine Rom. 2. 4 Nothing can properly be said to lead Men any ways but that which
very injurious to his Goodness yet directly and immediately opposite to his very Nature which is meer Goodness and Happiness and hath no Affinity with Rigour Cruelty or Misery Read Psal 34. 6. Psal 86. 5. Joel 2. 13. Jonah 4. 2. Micah 7. 18. If God doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of Men without just cause Lam. 3. 33. how can we in reason think that God in his eternal Purpose and absolute Pleasure should affect the extream Misery of any of his Creatures for the shewing of the absolute Soveraignty he hath over them If so he may as well damn them as create them How can we think that he should send them one after another into this World to enjoy some of the good things of this Life and after this short Life is over to torment them with Devils and damn'd Spirits for ever to shew his Power over them without just cause in the Creature What saith Abraham Gen. 18. 25. when he was interceding with God for Sodom with respect to a temporal Judgment Wilt thou destroy the Righteous with the Wicked that be far from thee Shall not the Judg of all the World do right If to destroy the Righteous with the Wicked was far from God in Temporals shall we think that God resolved to punish the Innocent in Hell with wicked Spirits For pray you observe if God hath from Eternity reprobated the greatest part of Mankind it must be understood that he look'd on them as Persons that would in time prove sinful or else he reprobated them simply as Men. If the first then was their Sinfulness wherein he beheld them the cause of their Rejection if the second then the pure and perfect Workmanship of his Hands yea that which was very good Gen. 1. 31. must be the Object of his Reprobation which cannot be it was a saying of one of the Ancients Aug. Lib. 3. Cont. Julian Cap. 31. Pag. 164. God is Good and God is Just he may without any desert free Men from Punishment because he is Good but he cannot without Evil desert and condemn any Man because he 's just And again Aug. Epist 106. ad Bonifac. If God be believed to damn any man that by Sin deserveth it not he is not to be believed to be free from Injustice And therefore for any to say that God hath irrevocably reprobated the greatest part of the World to eternal Misery before they had a being in this World or any possibility of doing Good or Evil he speaks more like a Mahumetan than a Christian however more harsh of the God of Love than he ought to speak and reflects dishonour upon him making him to be the Prime Principal and Irresistable Cause of the Damnation of Millions of Souls appointing them to Destruction of his own voluntary Will antecedent to any desert in them No Martha there is nothing can proceed from the God of Love that is unjust nothing unequal nothing hard nothing that any ways inclineth to the hurt of any of his Creatures considered as innocent and therefore no irreversible decreeing or ordaining of Men to everlasting Destruction as you pretend Mar. But doth not the Apostle Rom. 9. 20. 21. shew 't is no unrighteous thing no unequal or hard thing in God to reprobate or predestinate to Destruction which or how many of his Creatures he pleaseth 'T is his lawful and just Prerogative as he is absolute Lord of all Who art thou that repliest against God Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it why hast thou made me thus Hath not the Potter power over his Clay to make one Vessel to honour and another to dishonour Phil. I know this 9th Chapter to the Romans is the great Magazine and Fortress wherein all your imaginary Strength lieth and those Verses are the Weapons which you draw to silence those that question your horrid Notions about Personal Election and Reprobation Pray do you think that Paul was about to prove personal Election and Reprobation in these Verses Mar. Yes what else but to prove that God hath Power to create and appoint Vessels of Honour and Dishonour and consequently of Wrath as the Potter hath to make Vessels at his Pleasure without contradiction of the same Lump of Clay Phil. You are under a great mistake the great Controversy lay about the Terms of Justification whether by the Law or Faith and not about personal Election and Reprobation so that the Prerogative which the Lord claims to himself as a Royalty annexed to the Crown of Heaven and Earth in this 9th of the Romans or elsewhere in respect to the Condemnation and Eternal Destruction of his Creatures stands not in leaving what Persons he pleaseth to eternal ruin but in making the condition of Life and Death Salvation and Damnation as he pleaseth according to the Counsel of his own Will Eph. 1. 1. Now the Apostle was shewing the Way and Method that God will take in saving Sinners and that it is not the purpose of God that men should be justified by the Law but by Grace and through Faith and tho the Jews much boasted of their being Abraham's Seed and Moses's Disciples and their observing of the Law and judged it an equal thing that God should make that Law to be the Law of Life and Salvation to Men and the neglect of it the Law of Death and Damnation yet it being the good Pleasure of God to do otherwise and to ordain Faith in his Son Christ Jesus to be the way of Justification and Life and Unbelief the way to Condemnation and Death this Choice or Election shall stand whatever Men may think meet and fitting for him to do Therefore saith he Verse 15. I will have Mercy upon whom I will have Mercy and I will have Compassion upon whom I will have Compassion Men shall not prescribe unto me Laws or Terms of shewing Mercy my Will shall not be bounded by Man's Will neither will I be obliged by them what manner of Persons or how qualified I shall justify and save I mean to keep close to the Counsel of my own Will in that which concerns the Life and Death the Salvation or Destruction of my Creatures and so in this 21st Verse Hath not the Potter power over his Clay c. meaning that God Almighty hath the like Power over the whole Lump of Mankind in Adam to make what Laws of Life and Death he pleased and to appoint what manner of Persons should be saved or condemned which the Potter hath over the Lump of Clay to make what Vessel he pleaseth for Honour or Dishonour Now at best this Scripture is but an Allusion and should we suppose that the Apostle doth compare the Lord to a Potter as we often in Scripture find him compared to Persons and Things and human Actions Affections and Members of a Man attributed to God and divine Things because God in his Word descends as it were to our Capacities expressing heavenly Matters after
decreed that very few should have any benefit thereby when they had done their utmost they could do to obtain it Is it possible that Men should truly love God while they apprehend him as an Enemy bent in an unappeasable manner to destroy them and that to Eternity can any thus be induced to love him or live to him Thus your Doctrine cuts asunder the very Sinews of Religion discourageth Holiness and encourageth Profaneness for by your Opinion Heaven shall unavoidably be obtained by those that are elected and Hell must be as certainly endured by those that are reprobated and a Man may as well stop the Sun in its course and mete out the Heaven with a Span as force the Lord to revoke his Decree Truly if poor Man lies under such a rigid Fate all that he can do for the obtaining Heaven or avoiding Hell is but a piece of industrious Folly Why should we take upon us a strict course of Life why should we submit to Divine Precepts or address our selves to God by Prayer and like good Jacob wrestle with him for a Blessing to what purpose should we maintain a warfare against Satan Sin and all Vice when the greatest industry in the use of means to obtain them signifies nothing if not decreed to it May not this cause Persons to be swelled up with sorrow and destroy the chiefest inducements to Holiness when they shall seriously reflect upon all they had done to be purely in vain And again if Persons be absolutely appointed by the immutable and irreversible Decree of the Almighty to destruction 't is not all their hearing reading praying Works of Charity nor all mourning for Sin nor believing neither that can possibly procure their Salvation damned they must be And on the other side if Persons be absolutely ordained to Salvation their open contempt and neglect of all Holy Duties their living in pleasure and walking in ungodly courses cannot bring Damnation upon them they must be saved See God's Love to Mankind What Man rightly master of his own Reason will ever trouble himself about such impossible or unavoidable things 't is in vain to repent fruitless to weep yea madness to add to my own Infelicities by denying my self of any Pleasure or Profit which I might enjoy by closing with the World and in gratifying the sensitive Part Or why should we take upon us a strict course of Life endeavouring to keep God's Commandments and fighting with the Temptations of the Devil and keep them under our Bodies and bring under subjection when all we effect by it is an honourable Nothing What compass we by striving therewithal Why spend we time in rising up to fall Why linger we to act so many Crimes To suffer over Grief so many times And live so many several Deaths to taste To be no worse nor better at the last Or wherefore have we prayed since we know What must be must be tho we pray not so Wither's Britain's Rememb p. 54. So that your Doctrine makes all Endeavours and Undertakings of Persons in order to the attaining Heaven and Eternal Felicities fruitless and highly gratifies the Devil's Interest such an Opinion frames and fits a Soul for the Suggestions of Satan by which he draws Souls with more ease into Eternal Misery for will not Persons be ready to say I am one of those that are absolutely elected to Grace and Glory one of those that Christ died for or I am ablolutely cast away and left in the Fall to die and perish without a power to believe or a Christ to believe in If I lie under a necessity of either why should I trouble my self about Means or Ends since if I perish by my Sins I did but what was natural for me to do and which I was compelled to by an overpowring necessity and therefore I 'll take my ease and swim down the Stream of all Delights so that your Opinion overthrows the very Foundation of all true Piety and gives Persons the greatest discouragement to Duties and quite breaks the Anchor of the Soul that it cannot fix it self upon any Offers of Grace and Invitation nor stay it self upon any Promise of Heaven upon their repenting believing or obeying the Lord. Hope stirs up Men to begin and to continue in well-doing Hope is a patient and well-grounded Expectation of the fulfilling of whatsoever God hath promised But how is the Anchor well-grounded when notwithstanding the Promises of Heaven to all those that by patient continuance in well-doing seek for it Men by the most vigorous undertaking for Heaven shall be rewarded with the Wages of Death and crowned with eternal Shame for all they have done in their Christian Progress Is not this enough to shipwrack the Soul upon despair Yea I dare say This is the nearest and the straitest way To all Profaneness if the Bridle gives To Carnal Liberties and makes the Lives And Hearts of many Men so void of care From hence Distractions hence Despairings are Hence Mischiefs hence Self-murders do arise Hence is it that such multitudes despise Good Discipline yea this contemned makes The Life of Faith if once it rooting takes Disableth pious Practices out-right And where it roots destroys Religion quite Britain's Remembrancer p. 56. Which I could prove by many Instances from the Writings of others and the known Experiences of our Age one in my knowledg when reprov'd for his wicked loose Life would answer God might have made him better And in God's Love to Mankind pag. 204. we have it recorded concerning the Landgrave of Thuring who being reproved for his debauched Life and warned of the dangerous consequence thereof that so it might move upon him to consider his miserable condition and return gave this Answer If I am absolutely predestinated to Heaven the committing of the vilest Crimes will never exclude me And if I be reprobated let me manage my Life never so carefully let me steer my course never so prudently and piously I shall never arrive at Heaven and Happiness Philet But our Doctrine is not as you say a hinderance to Piety and a godly Life for those that hold it are Men of singular Piety indued with a Spirit of Prayer and live according to the strictest Rules of Holiness far beyond any that hold the contrary who are a company of loose livers Philad I know there are many of your opinion of late flown very high in their own conceit and condemn others we are apt on all hands according to the old Proverb to count our own Geese for Swans and every Fowl thinks its own Bird the fairest yet I doubt not if Persons of the one Judgment and the other were but truly compared together and an estimation made of the religious worth and holiness of each those that own General Redemption need not count it robbery to make themselves every way equal with their Opposers General Redemption having been not only avouched by our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles but also owned
the manner of Men yet it is not necessary that all those things which are attributed to God should have something in his Nature correspondent to them according to that ancient Saying Similitudes are not wont to run on all-fours Metaphors are not to be strain'd to express things in themselves quite opposite nor make the parallel run till it grows lame but great care must be taken that no mean base or unworthy thing be attributed to the most high And therefore from the Potter's Power over his Clay to make thereof a Vessel of Honour or Dishonour as he pleaseth to infer positively from thence that God hath purposely made some to be Vessels of Wrath is an unjustifiable Inference from that Similitude Surely the Holy Ghost compares not our most wise Creator to a foolish Potter who because he might make what he would of his Clay did therefore make the greatest number of his Pots to be broken again to shew that he had as well a Power to break them as to make them which none but a mad Man would do but rather to a wise Potter that designs his Work for some good end and use Doubtless God so made all things that not one of his Creatures hath so much cause of dislike as to say why hast thou made me thus No Vessel of Wrath came so made out of his Hands So that if any be Vessels of Wrath the fault is not in him but in themselves by reason of their Infidelity and Contempt of the Lord and his long Sufferance I know this place is usually made use of as a Fortress for such as you are to flee to and is misunderstood to imply what you say but if you will but mind what the Apostle was upon and let this place be expounded by the Context and other places of holy Scripture so that the whole and every part of God's Word may agree in one Truth then we shall never take it in this sense of yours for then this dark and obscure part of Paul's Epistle which the Apostle Peter saith many wrest to their own Destruction 2 Pet. 3. 16. must be taken openly to oppose and contradict the whole Course and Tenour of God's Word Is there no way to understand the 9th of the Romans than by making those places which sound severely to clash against those that sound compassionately Is it not far the best way to interpret hard and doubtful Texts by those many Texts that are clear and easy than to interpret the many clear Texts by one that is dark and difficult or if one Scripture may have a double sense must we needs take it in the worst must I needs say that the Father of Mercy and God of Consolation which doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of Men did absolutely damn him before he had done either good or evil is it not the best so to understand it that his Mercy and Justice his Love and Power may imbrace and kiss each other Now the Scripture speaks in some places darkly and dubiously in other places it expresses the same thing more clearly and certainly the doubtful are to be expounded by the certain and dark places by those that are clear and all Exposition answerably to the Current of Scripture not contrary to it Now it doth seem as if the Apostle in these Words had an Eye to Jeremiah 18. 3 4 c. where he speaks of the Clay in the Potter's Hands not as it was in Creation but in Vocation being marr'd in the Hands of the Potter and so finding it would not be for that use he designed it for made thereof a Vessel as pleaseth him So God sometimes whilst he is at work to fashion a Soul for his own Work by the preaching of the Gospel by the sweet motion of his Spirit by Mercy and long Sufferance yet the Vessel is marr'd the Clav yields not nor is pliable to the Will of God and so finding it will not be a fit Vessel for Honour he makes a Vessel of Dishonour Read the 7 8 9 Verses and compare them with 2 Tim. 2. 20 21. so that it is plain God made of one Lump all Innocent and Upright Gen. 5. ult Eccles 7. ult at the first See what Mr. Loveday saith upon this in his Personal Reprobation Reprobated Page 243 God saith he like a Potter makes of low vile Man honourable Vessels Hath not the Potter any ordinary Potter power over the Clay to make it what Vessel he pleaseth and when a piece thereof runs coarse and is marr'd upon the Wheel hath he not power to make it a less honourable Vessel and hath not God the same and much more power over you that have imbas'd your selves by slighting and abusing all those Mercies he hath designed to bestow upon you and thereby make you honourable To be plain saith the Apostle why may not God for your Disobedience and Rebellion to his Son as zealous as you are for the Law of Moses of a glorious People and invested with all those extraordinary Privileges make you a base and contemptible People and besides your continuing still in Unbelief make your Condition far worse in the World to come Such a Paraphrase as this seems to bear a sweet Harmony with Jeremiah 18. also with the Scope of the whole Context and with the Apostle's conclusive Result Verse 32. that they did not attain to it because they sought it not by Faith but as it were by the Works of the Law So that when Persons do Evil against God and will not obey his Voice but obey Unrighteousness and harden their Hearts against him then he will make them Vessels of Dishonour prepared for Destruction These are they that Jude speaks of Verse 4. that were of old ordained to this Condemnation not simply as they were Men but ungodly Men turning the Grace of God into Wantonness c. By what is or might farther be said we may see that those absolute Decrees of Mers inevitable Damnation is no part of God's revealed Will for if this 9th of the Romans faileth to prove what you bring it for as it is evident it doth then there is not the least shew in the Scripture for it Nay this Opinion of yours seems rather to be taken out of the Turkish Alcoran or Heathen Authors than the Bible for the Holy Scriptures are so far from containing or asserting any such Exercise in God over his Creatures which consists in a most severe and dreadful dooming them from Eternity to endless Misery that on the other hand they frequently exalt him as very gracious loving merciful and bountiful towards all and that there must be a great Breach on the Creatures part in point of Degeneration before the Lord gives him up to ruin Isa 27. 11. yea the Love and Pity of God to his Creature Man exceeds the Affections of a Father to his Son or of the tenderest Mother to her sucking Child Mat. 7. 11. Isa 49. 15. Martha I cannot
Men Psal 139. Let us then here learn to become Fools that we may be wise and leave prying into those things which are beyond our human Reason to conceive and let us keep close to God's revealed Will which is our Duty for the want of this hath filled Professors Heads with Fancies and so they have been smiting one another and weakning the Hands of each others in the Lords Work while Piety Virtue the Love and Fear of God the true Spiritual Substance of all Religion is too too much neglected So that what if God did foreknow all the wicked Actions of Men before they came to pass yet might not God as well foreknow that if they had but improved those Means which he through his Grace had afforded them they might not have come to pass for the fore-knowledg in God of what Men will do doth not imply any absolute necessity of their doing of it neither have they any less Power to refrain doing of it because of God's fore-knowing that they will do it Whilst it remained saith Peter to Ananias touching his Possession was it not thy own i.e. wert thou not at full liberty to have kept it for thy own private use and when it was sold was it not in thy Power viz. whether thou wouldst part with thy Money or not Doubtless God foreknew what Ananias would do yet this did not take away the Liberty or Freedom of his Will to dispose of it as he pleased otherwise God's Foreknowledg should necessitate him to sell the Possession and to keep back part of the Mony and lie against the Holy Ghost by saying there was all when there was not this Act must be looked upon not the Act of Ananias but of God himself for whatsoever a Man is necessitated to do by an unresistable Power out of himself is the Act of the Necessitator not his As the Apostle saith Rom. 7. 20. If I do that I would not it is no more I that do it but Sin that dwells in me I would not have you admit into your thoughts that God is any ways Author of the wicked Actions of Men or that he decrees any thing that is an Infringement to his Justice or his Mercy in the least Mar. I am against those that hold that God works Sin by an operative Decree as Mr. Perkins in his Commentary upon Heb. 11. 40. who saith that under the large extent of God's Decree we must include the sinful Actions of Men for God doth not barely foresee them but decrees the being of them and so wills them after a sort tho not to be done by himself yet by others And so upon Jude ver 4. that nothing comes to pass without the Decree of God no not the wicked Actions of Men which God not only foreseeth but decreeth Now it is true which you have said if God should be operative in the working of Sin then he would be the Author of Sin yet that all Sin comes to pass by the permissive decree of God is a thing I hope you will not deny Phil. I see you can play fast and loose with your Opinion sometimes you say that God did from Eternity freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass and when by this Doctrine you find that Man is laid under a necessity of sinning and consequently God becomes the Author of all the wicked Actions of Men then you would help your self by saying Though Man sin not by the operative decree of God yet he doth by the permissive decree This is no more indeed than what we find and hear in the Sermons of all those of your way when they preach on this Subject the Doctrinal part of their Sermons countenance one thing and the Applicatory part that which is contrary unto it labouring to beget such a Faith in their Auditors as would destroy the Faith of their Doctrine What wooing and beseeching doth your Ministers make for Sinners to close with Christ to repent believe and obey the Lord and not to withstand the Day of Grace when yet notwithstanding all this they believe there is no Grace nor Mercy but for very few before them and that their strongest Endeavours to repent c. effect just nothing but the over-ruling Decree of God doth all and so they pull down with one hand what they build up with the other And the Truth is this Doctrine of God's eternal decreeing the greatest part of Adam's Offspring to Sin and Damnation includes in it so many Absurdities horrible Blasphemies undermining the very Foundation of all Religion and Piety that my Hopes are that it will shortly fall with the unsupportable weight of its own Evil. Yea were it not for so many Volumes written to uphold it I should hope it would appear so wicked that all good Christians e're long would be ashamed to own it and God's Love to all would be exalted in the Hearts Tongues and Writings of all Men. One thing I perceive is the cause why this Doctrine doth so flourish and lift up its Head in this Day is an over-much confiding in Persons of whose Learning and Piety they have had a high Opinion This draws many ignorant tho well-meaning Hearers to be zealous in what they teach be it right or wrong and to follow Persons reputed Godly and Learned more than the pure unerring Word of God Alas all good and pious Men have Errors and Fits of Distempers thro human Frailty and we ought not to take their Words upon trust but upon trial and in those things that appertain to Salvation bring them to the Law and Testimony and to suspect that for Truth where the Word of God administers much more Ground to doubt and question than believe as this Doctrine of personal and respective Reprobation doth But a word to the permissive Decree of God If by the permissive Decree of God you mean that God permitting or suffering such or such a thing to be done or come to pass supposeth a necessity of the coming of it to pass This I deny for if it be true that a Sparrow falls not to the Ground without his Permission yet hath not he decreed eternally that it shall be at such or such a time or in any cruel way as it often falls out directly contrary to his Will Deut. 22. 6. and though it be a Truth God hath decreed to suffer Sin otherwise there could be none yet it is also a great Truth that this permissive Decree of God is no cause of Sin God doth permit one Man to take away the Life of another but it doth not follow that therefore he did appoint or ordain them to such wicked Actions No Decree of God that is purely and barely permissive either induceth or supposeth any necessity of the coming to pass what is so decreed no more than a Capital Law necessitates to Murder Permission supposeth a Possibility of sinning or not sinning in the Party permitted From whence I conclude there is no damning to Misery
to come are taken away by Christ Rom. 8. 33. Who shall lay any thing to the Charge of God's Elect c. and so Rom. 4. 23. Isa 35. 8. The Lord hath laid upon him the Iniquity of us all and 1 Pet. 2. 24. himself bore our Sins on his Body c. and what I said I will say that tho the Elect may sin as well as others yet their God in Christ will never un-son them nor yet touching their Justification and eternal Salvation will he love them ever a whit the less yea tho they commit never so many and great Sins For this is a certain Truth that as no Good in them or done by them did move him to elect and justify them and to give them eternal Life so no Evil in them or done by them can move him to take that away when once given Philad This is like that which is in the Mouth of some Be in Christ and sin if thou canst what pity is it that Men pretending to Wisdom and Sobriety and Professors of Godliness should fall into such Raptures as are next to Madness What a bundle of Errors are here wrapt up together and that under Scripture-guize but surely you do not read the Scripture in that Spirit in which it was wrote or else you might see notwithstanding the Apostle's triumphing that till Persons repent of their Sins and turn to God they stand charged with many things as I have told you from Eph. 2. and from Paul who was before his Conversion a Persecutor a Blasphemer and confess'd himself the chief of Sinners yea before the Apostle comes to this Triumphing he was long exercised with Frights Terrors within and Frightnings without and tells the Corinthians 1 Cor. 2. 3. that his Preaching among them was in great fear and trembling so that we must Fight before we Triumph and Mourn before the Lord Comfort us And how clearly doth 1 Pet. 2. 24. shew that the proper intention of Redemption is Dominion eternal Redemption is an eternal Obligation to Service Ye are bought with a price ye are not your own your Bodies and Spirits are the Lord's 1 Cor. 6. 19 20. Rom. 14. 9. You may see that one end of Christ's being a Redeemer was that he might be a Sovereign Lord over his Purchase yea this is one great end of the Lord 's entering into Covenant with his People promising to do great things for them Ezek. 11. 19 20. I say the end of all is that they might serve him Hockins on God's Decree p. 93. Can we entertain so ignoble a belief that the eternal Son of God should suffer for any less end than to advance our Human Nature to the greatest height of Piety and Purity of Life and to raise our Souls to the most refined and sublimate goodness What did Christ take our Nature upon him and become Surety for us and pay such an infinite price for us that we might spend more freely and daringly on the Stock of our Surety's Satiffaction Ah! Who can with-hold their Eyes from Tears to think that any should make use of Mercy to damn them For many had not been guilty of so many Sins nor persisted in them without Repentance had it not been for their false hope in Christ not considering Christ came to redeem from all Iniquity as well as from all Wrath. Philet But Christ dying for the Elect hath thereby fulfilled all Righteousness satisfied Divine Justice and purchased Heaven for them Philad And what then Philet Why then there 's no doubt but they shall be saved for in the very moment of Election they were pardoned of all Sins past present and to come Philad What as if now nothing could endanger their Souls they have enough for Heaven Pray what should hinder them from bidding all Sin welcom Why may they not kill whore c. and commit all Abomination and if impleaded for it bring in this as an Evidence that they were in the very moment of Election pardoned of all Sins past present and to come they have a Gracious God that will forgive them and a Surety who hath paid for all Philet I perceive what you are driving at You hold that Faith and Obedience in us to be the cause of God's Electing or Chusing us to Life and Salvation Doth not the Scripture prove that Election is not according to foreseen Faith not because Men do or will believe but because they should believe Rom. 9. 11. 1 Pet. 1. 2 3 4. 2 Tim. 1. 9. Tit. 1. 1. Now if Faith and Obedience be the cause of God's loving us then here is Merit this eclipses the Glory of God's free Love and renders Salvation of Debt and not of Grace Mar. This is down-right Popery nay I affirm that Faith and Repentance are no more a means to go to Heaven by than prophane Cursing and Swearing Philad That Faith in Christ and Obedience to the Lord is a cause without which God chuseth none to Life and Salvation is a Truth unless you can prove that God hath designed his Son to die to save such as will neither repent of their Sins believe nor obey him but live and die in open Rebellion against God and do despight to the Spirit of Grace and trample under foot the Blood of the Son of God c. but that it is the cause for which God chuseth any I disown as well as you For the Love of God the Father to the Sons of Men as they were Sinners and Enemies to him was the essential cause of our Salvation John 3. 16. Rom. 5. 6 8 10. 1 Pet. 3. 18. and Jesus Christ the meritorious and procuring cause of Man's Salvation and should we admit of any thing else but Christ to be the matter of our Justification or the meritorious Cause of Eternal Life this would be injurious to the Perfection of Christ's Righteousness and overthrow the freeness of Divine Grace and Love But you and all Men ought rightly to divide and distinguish between the Cause and Condition of our Salvation that Christ may be owned as the Cause and Author of it and Faith and Obedience as the way and means to attain to it for as God Almighty hath prepared a Heaven for Men so he hath appointed the way and means to fit and prepare them for it as Christ is the Way so if I should say that Faith and Obedience is a way to come to enjoy it I might say it was advancing Nature above Grace or setting up our own Righteousness in the room of Christ's Righteousness and so robbing him of his Honour or asserting Merits surely Eternal Happiness hereafter hath some dependance upon Holiness here Mod. I like this well and do believe that God that hath appointed the end hath also appointed the means as in the Case of Paul Acts 27. 22. though God had promised to save Paul and all that were in the Ship yet they were to use the means otherwise they could not be safe I would have
before wholly to be ascribed to the Grace of God in Christ as the principal and primary Cause Now as to Faith and Repentance being the Gift of God this is a truth God is said to give Faith and Repentance yea to intend the Salvation of all Men when he vouchsafeth a sufficiency of means Now Faith is taken many ways sometimes and very frequently 't is taken for the Gospel Acts 6. 7. Gal. 1. 23. So it is the Gift of God and he is said to give Faith and Repentance when he gives the Gospel which is the Word of Faith and so Faith is the Gift of God and when any Soul is by the goodness of God led to repentance God is said to give Repentance Also God gives the power or ability to repent and believe or else Man could do neither yet doth not God's Grace destroy our Duty tho God gives not only Grace necessary but also sufficient for yielding Faith and Obedience yet the Act or Duty of believing is not God's Work but Man's Heb. 11. Rom. 10. 17. James 3. 2. And the Person that is regenerate must be so far active in the Work that the Work it self may be as truly and properly ascribed unto Man and called his as it is ascribed to God and called his Gift now this you must believe unless you have so far forsaken your Reason as to say that Christ acts the Creature 's Actions and so Jesus Christ repents and Jesus Christ believes and Man doth nothing But surely we stand bound to believe repent and obey the Lord if we expect Salvation these are our own acts and 't is impossible they should be the acts of Christ for he that is said to act any action is said to do it Now if when we are exhorted to do these Duties Christ should do them for us while we sit still what sense must we make of Scripture must Jesus Christ break off his Sins by Repentance and amend his evil ways and doings or must Christ believe in Christ or walk in the steps of Christ And from hence it will infallibly follow that Persons shall be damned because God did not only make them Believers by an irresistible Power but also act their Work too Saith Paul Rom. 8. If ye through the Spirit not the Spirit without you nor ye without the Spirit intimating that Man must be an Agent in the Work it must be his own act and therefore he is not wholly passive neither have we ground to believe God will work these in such a way as shall be impossible to be frustrated Philet But if God works Conversion in a resistible way still Free-Grace loseth the triumph and Free will takes the Crown but when God works he works irresistibly Men cannot resist his Will if he works none can hinder it Philad I believe that God hath and still works and none can be able to hinder such are the Works of Creation and Redemption c. When Man was fallen none could hinder the Lord from setting his Love upon him nor hinder him from shewing Mercy to him in sending his only Son to die for them nor hinder the planting of his Will and Light in their Hearts convincing them of Sin Nor could the Jews of old or any in our days hinder or prevent God from rising early and sending his Prophets and Ministers to call Persons to Repentance nor hinder him from administring Grace and Mercy to them nor is it in the power of Man to frustrate God in raising up Persons from the dead in the Resurrection and setting the Godly with Christ in Glory and all the Rejecters of his Grace and Love in endless Misery Neither do I deny but God hath and may still if he please convert some by an irresistible Power we must not care to limit the Holy One of Israel in any of his ways yet it is not God's usual way of working to force Persons against their Wills to be Holy and to accept of Life but he is pressing by his Holy Spirit and by his Word and Ministers which is the ordinary way that the Lord takes to beget Faith c. and therefore Gospel-Ministers are said 2 Cor. 6. 1. to be workers together with God that is Ministers do co-operate with God in order to one and the same effect not that Ministers in their pressing and preaching should so work with God as to be able to do as much as God himself doth in perswading Men but rather they work after one and the same way Ministers in their preaching incline and move the Heart of Men to accept of Christ and this he doth perswadingly without forcing or necessitating their Wills to such or such Election this is God's usual way of working in the dispensation of his Divine Will Philet But I tell you 't is effected by the irresistible act of free Grace Persons are altogether passive in the work of Conversion yea have no more power to stir than Lazarus had when he had lain four days in the Grave Persons are dead in Sins and Trespasses and what less than the almighty Power of God can cause them to live a spiritual Life I do not know You ought not to believe there is any annext Power in the act of Conversion doth not the Apostle Ephes 1. 19 20. speak of the exceeding greatness of the Lord's Power wrought in them that believe according to his mighty Power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead Philad As for your urging Christ and Lazarus being both dead to prove Persons as unable to act in Conversion it is impertinent for tho the Lord in raising up Christ did the work wholly of himself by his mighty Power neither was Lazarus able to act any thing in the Grave towards restoring his Life yet in the Work of conversion the Lord comes to a Creature which he hath by free Grace furnished with Abilities to do what he requires of him And Lazarus after he heard the Voice of the Lord and received Life was active and came forth and so when Persons hear the Voice of the Lord and are thereby raised from a death in Sin or a deadly custom of Sinning to live soberly justly and godly this is said to be a raising from the Dead and a new Creation begotten again and by Faith and Repentance making new Creatures tho the Lord bestoweth Grace sufficient for the yielding to the Voice of the Lord when he calleth them by the Gospel yet through the alone proper fault of Man it becomes unfruitful for the Lord doth not usually come to Persons in such a mighty Whirlwind as 1 Kings 19. 11. to force their consent and carry them headlong to their duty and irresistibly compel them to embrace eternal Happiness and shew such a Miracle of his mighty Power as he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead or upon Lazarus when he had lain four days dead in the Grave Now it is true the Power by